Darkness Rising
by SouthKentishTown
Summary: A little over 10 years after Amaterasu left the mortal realm for the Celestial Plain, a prophet leaves the Oina tribe with a startling prophecy - one of their own will turn to Orochi. Lika is no longer the little girl who wandered through the Spirit Gate 10 years earlier, but can she prevent the future? Or will she end up fulfilling it?
1. Prologue

It had been long. So very, very long. It wasn't that they needed her, he guessed, it was just that he missed her. It wasn't the same, stowed away in a merchants blanket, perched atop a pilgrims hood. Not the same as riding on the back of a white wolf, not the same as riding on the back of a goddess. He'd told himself he didn't need that old furball to be inspired, that he could be the celestial envoy no matter what. But recently, things had been getting in the way.

It wasn't her fault that she couldn't come back. But her replacement just wasn't the same. That camaraderie, that chocolate eyed stare, the way she seemed to space out and disappear from him, from everyone, just for a moment, gone. He'd tried to help. He really had. But there had to be a celestial envoy on this Earth, Poncle lore dictated that the celestial envoy had to spread the word of the Gods. To spread the word. No matter what.

Miya had tried. But even she couldn't quite muster her brush to paint the God's the way he could, the way Ishaku could. Two owls, yet two clocks. He could still picture their faces as they tore his grandfather apart. The Oina were shocked. The Poncles, distraught. But no one could tell him why. No one could tell him how, after their years of imprisonment under the icy peaks of Ezofuji, they'd suddenly returned. Even Tuskle hadn't heard them awaken beyond the stony silence of the Affun Gate. One moment they were there. The next Kamui was smothered in ice.

It still was. He shuddered a little and tried to huddle into his clothes. Soon, he told himself. Soon. Soon he would be back. The lake outside was completely frozen, inside the tent wasn't much better. Hopefully the big navy outcast wouldn't be too long. The wind snapped. Issun turned half from the smouldering fire pit. There he was.

Oki hadn't changed much. At least not as a wolf. His red and navy fur was bushier, he supposed, than when he'd last been here, but his red eyes still had the same 'fuck off' attitude they'd had when he'd met him all those years before. The Oina pendant hung free from the fur, more battered, more worn than he'd seen it before. He shook, and the ice and snow fell off him in waves. Outside, wind filled the silence. "So, how's Kai?" Oki gave a soft growl. Not now. First, he had to shift back.

He heard a snap. A low crack that rose into a crescendo of rustling fur and melding bones, the song of a Oina. "She's fine." His tone was short, clipped, terse. His hairs still stood on end. He knew why Issun was back. He knew Issun why Issun was in his tent. "I had to."

"Had to..." A glint, a single sliver of silver reflected the embers. Kutone. He'd removed Kutone.

"I had no choice!"

"No choice!"

"I didn't know they were after your grandfather! Kamui was in danger... And Kai!"

Issun froze. "From what?"

"We didn't realise. The prophet, he told us..."

"Waka?" What had the half baked prophet been doing in Wep'keer when he was supposed to lounging around on the celestial plain?

"Lika, she's not one of us."

"What do you mean? She's Kai's sister!"

"He foretold that the demons would rise again, and that _'The leaf will turn and pave the way for the rebirth of Orochi. Darkness will flood the plains of Nippon as the Dark swells. Only a fiery spirit will burn away the threat.'_"

The leaf. Lika's mask was a butterbur leaf. There had to be another choice, another path. If Yami was to return, then that meant celestial plain was in danger, and the celestial plain meant only one thing to Issun. Ammy. If darkness returned they'd have to pray for a miracle.

"Who've you told?"

"They all know of the prophecy. But only you know of Kutone."

"Not even Kai?"

He paused. "Not even Kai."

No one could know. He'd seen what fate had done to even the sanest men; they didn't need Lika to end up helping Yami. No, she had to turn away from that path on her own. Issun ran his hand down the silvered edge of Denkomaru. From the corner of his eye he saw Oki brush the snow of Kutone's flat. If Yami was returning, not even Kutone and Denkomaru could keep him out of Nippon forever. If only...

A smile spread across his face. His glow slid back to its normal, spritely green. He knew exactly what they were going to do to help. And he knew exactly how they were going to do it. Oki glanced up, confused. "How long do you reckon it would take us to get to Kamiki Village?"


	2. Wicked Heart

_Wicked Heart_

She could still feel their eyes boring into her; still hear their hushed whisperings and their fervent prayers. She could still smell the way fear clung on their cloaks and turned their faces ashen and cold, she could see the way panic widened their eyes. And, as much as it pained her, she could still hear them repeating the same words they'd always used for her, only this time, they were venomous and low.

Unstable. Unpredictable. Unreliable. No longer a puppy. Not yet a wolf. Shameful. A disgrace.

They all stung, the last one, in particular.

Some part of her argued that she should've stayed, that she should be proving them all wrong. But that part of her was a reasoning that her wolf form had no time for as she sped onwards through the forest of Yoshpet.

She may have been a long way from a puppy, but she was certainly no wolf, at least not in the Oina sense, and neither in the natural sense. She was skinny, a bundle of pale green fur tipped with olive at the paws and tail and marked with kanji, around her neck, hung a battered Oina pendant, and the butterbur leaf mask scarcely shielded her eyes.

At least they wouldn't be able to follow her here. She sprung over the low stump of Ponc'tan and continued inwards. Even Kai wouldn't dare to venture any further, not after what had happened all of those years ago. And the Poncles? They held a morbid, but healthy, fear of what lay beyond their land.

Lika had ceased caring. She no longer cared about the thick black boughs that raked through her fur, the thorny entanglements that seemed to shiver and move. She no longer cared about the way the forest murmured in her mind, in her ear, the way she could feel her senses sliding from beneath her.

Even spirits and demons avoided this place. But it was far, far from holy.

Once, she had heard, it had been a grove of sacred trees, planted to protect Kamui from the evil within. The Spirit Gate. Legend had told how the blossom of the forest had never used to cease, how it had served as a refuge for many heroes of myth. No one knew what had happened then. Some said it was the Spirit Gate, corrupting the forest slowly from the inside out. Others thought it was simply time, or lack of belief in the Gods, or the Darkness growing in strength. Either way, something in the forest died.

The Oina were the only ones who still considered it sacred, who still honoured it after the Oina hero Sewaprolo, who had sealed it off against demons and travellers. Now only they could enter its depths.

The wind began to lose its sting. The air went from freezing to simply bitter. The trees began to slowly part to reveal their secret.

_'Opening the gate only invites misfortune and disaster'_

She remembered Kemu's words well, and Kai's, and Oki's, and the words of anyone else when she asked about the Spirit Gate. That had been before she had been through it, before she had witnessed what was on the other side.

She stood up, and felt her spine straighten, felt her fur become cloth, her teeth and claws blunt. The mask slid back over her eyes, obscuring her view.

Lika loathed it. It was the symbol of the Oina, the mark of their difference. Once Kemu had told her it meant that they were special, chosen by the Gods. But now she knew better, the masks were to cover up their shame. They were not special, not chosen, not by anyone, they were simply different. The few Oina who had crossed the sea of Nippon had learnt that, where they were regaled as sideshows and treated as heathens.

But the mask was still part of her, part of the prophecy.

The Spirit Gate appeared much the same as ever, glowing a dappled silver in the light that fought its way into the clearing. The markings were still elusive, and she wondered, as she ran her hands along it, why the Poncles were chosen to guard the Gate.

She supposed it was because only they dared to venture further into the forest, no matter how much they loathed it.

The Gate had opened once, without a Poncle, she was sure of it. Or maybe, she hadn't seen the Poncle. The owls she remembered well though. One gold, one silver, playfully hooting at her, teasing her in this forest, hiding behind branches and boughs as she followed them blindly to this very spot.

And then what?

She remembered little more. There had been a village, of that she was sure, then a creature with 8 heads and a strange, dreamlike calm. She remembered little else after that until she had been rescued by a white wolf, with red markings, and Issun.

Except for one thing, a voice, harsh yet melodic, playing in the back of her mind. Whose voice? It wasn't anyone she knew.

"Lika, get away from there!"

She shot back with a start. Lika hadn't expected them to be there so quickly, had been so absorbed in her memories that she had forgotten to listen for the tell-tale shuffle of feet in snow. The old man's voice was harsh, a barked command. It surprised Lika. She wasn't used to hearing old Kemu so angry.

He was with a Poncle, whose familiar butter cream yellow glow Lika recognised as Miya. She snarled under her breath. She hated being tailed.

"Please, Lika." His voice was less harsh, but had not lost the urgent, hopeful undertone. Her lip curled in disgust. "Just come back to Wep'Keer. We can sort everything out between you and Kai."

"But it's not just Kai, is it?" She could scarcely keep the biting sarcasm out of her words. "It's you and Oki and Samickle, it's every single Oina in Kamui!"

He flinched slightly, stung by her words. "But, Lika..."

"No. I've had enough. Go back to Wep'Keer if you want, but I'm not coming."

"What are you going to do? You know you can't open it, only the Poncles have that power..."

"I know." She cut across him abruptly. "But why would I even want to open the gate to _misfortune _and _danger_?" She emphasised the two words, bearing them like daggers at the village elder's throat. He swallowed, nervous.

"Exactly what I was thinking. But Lika, just come back, Tuskle would love to talk to you, she hasn't seen you in a long while, she was wondering if you wanted to pray, you know, for old times' sake..." He trailed off at Lika's glare.

"Try not to be patronising, Kemu. It works a lot better." But she turned away from the gate. She owed Tuskle, and the rest of Kamui, that much. Kemu brightened, and went to say something. "Don't even bother." She brushed him off, and shot one last glare at Miya and a longing, wistful look at the Spirit Gate before she disappeared back into the dark passages of Yoshpet.


	3. Whispers Beneath Ice

_**A/N: For pacing, writing and other purposes such as proof-reading, I'm going to strip this back down to this chapter and then add the rest of the chapters on a twice weekly basis.**_

_**Thanks for reading and sorry for the inconvenience.**_

_**SouthKentishTown ~ 01/01/2013**_

_Whispers beneath Ice_

Tuskle glanced up as she entered the shack, and a smile lit the old Oina's face. The years of guarding and tending the shrines of Ezofuji had been less than kind to her, lining her face with worry and concern. Her deep black eyes still held the same warm greetings that they always had though, something for which Lika was grateful.

"How are you doing?"

Lika's mood soured. The Shaman acted as if she hadn't heard of the rumours, of the prophecy, she acted as though she wasn't next to solely responsible for the dilemma Lika was currently in. After all, hadn't it been her who had relayed the Celestial's message on to Samickle and Kemu, who in turn had informed the entire tribe?

"Just fine." She hadn't intended for it to come out as spiteful as it did. Tuskle blinked, perturbed, before turning back to her writing.

"You don't have to be like that, you realise." She muttered softly, wary of provoking Lika. The girl had grown so much since she had last seen her, and Tuskle was never sure if it had been for the better.

Last time she had seen her, she had been at the initiation rite, she had fidgeted and squirmed, the complete opposite of the calm, dignified posture of the boy, Tosu. But it was her they'd been watching, holding their breath for the moment she joined the tribe formally and spiritually, when she would become one with her mask and be announced as Tuskle's successor.

They all knew how that had turned out.

She had grown a long way from the small girl who had brought Ezofuji's mountains to flame, whose prayers had caused them to erupt and flood Kamui with spring heat. Back then her powers had been like a promise, but now, now that they had swollen and grown with her, they seemed a lot more like a threat.

Especially after what had happened at the rite.

The twin owls upon her headdress gave irritable twitches. Tuskle ignored them, and continued to watch Lika as she paced around the small hut.

There had been others like her, they were rarities, true, among the Oina. But there had been others who had shunned the wolf, who loathed their masks and their differences. There were others who had wielded spiritual power, who had saved Kamui from demons and ice. Sewaprolo himself had travelled Nippon searching for answers before sealing the forest of Yoshpet.

But they couldn't risk it, not with Lika, not with the prophecy hanging over their heads, not with the threat of the Dark's return.

The man had been anxious, he himself had seemed almost possessed as he had hovered around her cabin in jerky movements. He shielded his nerves well, but Tuskle had always prided herself on being an excellent judge of emotion.

Then he had told her.

_'The leaf will turn and pave the way for the rebirth of Orochi. Darkness will flood the plains of Nippon as the Dark swells. Only a fiery spirit will burn away the threat.'_

Her first thought had not been of Lika, but of Yoshpet, of the forest's bare black boughs. When she had turned to ask him of the meaning, he had gone.

She had gone to the tribe leaders, Kemu, Samickle, and Oki.

It had been Oki who had seen the connection, who had paled and fallen silent as his mind unravelled the Celestial's riddle. He hadn't wanted to tell them, to burden them with the knowledge. He himself had been shocked and uneasy with the revelation.

But he had told them. It was for the good of the village. They had offered their condolences, their pity, such a shame that it was Kai's sister, that the blow had to be so close to home. All the while their own hearts were racing; their own thoughts were falling into panicked disarray that it was the girl who not too long ago had been their saviour.

They had resolved not to tell anyone. Their resolve had not lasted very long, rumours and tales had spread through the village of Wep'Keer like wildfire.

They thought that by putting her through the rite, they would seal her fate with the tribe, that they could prevent her from turning. Instead, it had only seemed to seal her fate among the Oina even more.

Lika picked up a small bead, and examined it in the palm of her hand. She was still stoically ignoring Tuskle.

The older woman gave a sigh, and sat back down behind her desk.

"Come here."

She obeyed without question, both habit, and instinct. She had spent years being groomed as Tuskle's successor, long years learning to study the myths and legends of the Oina, the layout of the Wawku Shrine, the protective charms that sealed the Affun Gate and Yoshpet. But now, now she wasn't so sure any more.

One thing she was sure of though was that she didn't want to spend the rest of her life at the feet of Ezofuji.

She sat opposite Tuskle and tried to avoid the prying of the Shaman's black eyes, watching the light reflect off of the heart of the bead in her palm.

"You're angry." Lika bit back a sharp retort. "But we don't know if it even is you yet, and if it is, when it will happen, this could be years, even decades in your future." Tuskle pleaded.

"That's not what you told the rest of the tribe. You told them it was me, you made it perfectly clear that the 'leaf' referred to my mask, that my turning was before I became a woman. I'm not stupid, Tuskle. I know why you tried to put me through the initiation rite early. You didn't want to risk giving me a chance to turn against you."

"Lika, we would never…"

"But you did, didn't you?" She snarled. But a thought had settled in her mind, had wound its way into a conscience. There was a way. Ezofuji. "Tuskle, you said I could change it."

"Yes." The older woman's eyes grew wary. "But I wouldn't…"

She'd made her mind. That was the way, she would go to Ezofuji, she would pray for the curse to be lifted. And she wouldn't move until she got an answer.


	4. Quiet Fire

_**A/N: Thanks to KonekoYoukai for the review!**_

_Quiet Fire_

The trails mounting the westernmost slopes of Ezofuji were perilous, slick with ice and hard with snow, but they were also lonely, isolated and desolate, marked by just a few frost-clad pennants bearing the Oina crest that fluttered bravely in the blizzards.

But it was nothing compared to what lay entombed in Wawku Shrine. Demons, tricks and traps lurked in its stony halls. There were icy floors that collapsed beneath you, bridges that only existed with the aid of the Gods, and mechanisms and machinations that had long since been frozen stiff under the cold weight of the ice.

The architect of the Shrine had been a brilliant man, unearthly in his initiative, but he had seen something in his work, something that had possessed him with a profound paranoia, that had driven him to make some areas nigh on impassable, that had caused him to build the Shrine into a fortress before throwing himself into the flaming caldera of Ezofuji.

Its protectors had quickly turned on it, sprung to life with the profane ticking of clocks and laying siege to Kamui. It had been they who had broken the Shrine's lift mechanism and turned it into a tomb.

The wind lashed at Lika's exposed skin, ice crystals clinging to her clothes. But she refused to turn back. Tuskle was right.

The prophecy wasn't set in stone, it was still changeable; it remained a warning for the future, not a threat for the present. It could still be changed, she could still change it.

The storm grew fierce, the clouds crackling with urgency. Water turned to ice the moment it hit the air, sweat forming sharp saline shards on her hands. The wolf within her gave a yelp of delight at the wind rushing past her, the soft tread of snow underfoot. It nuzzled its way to the forefront of her thoughts, and gave an impatient bark.

She pushed it aside, out of her mind. It would be faster, not to mention easier, as a wolf. But it would mean giving in, allowing the wolf to wrestle control of her thoughts, to flood her senses and drown her reason.

A howl trembled at the edge of her lips. Her muscles began to burn with vicious protest. The cold slithered into her furs where it nestled like glass shards against her skin. Suddenly, the wolf's offer looked a lot more tempting.

Lika just gritted her teeth and pushed harder, forced her muscles to warm her with the heat of her plight.

Finally, she reached the top of the Shrine.

It remained untouched, sealed against all but the elements. A pendulum hanging heavily from the bough of a black iron tree kept a steady heartbeat in spite of the winds that battered it. This had been the western shrine, where the twin demons had been defeated all those years ago, and where Lechku had rested all those years before.

The place had been built so that through the early autumn and spring the constellation of Itegami seemed to rise behind it, illuminating the clock with pale starlight. At least, when the weather was good it did.

She huddled by one of the massive stone demons carved around its circumference, mouths agape, fire gushing forth. They alternated, fire and ice, fire then ice, pouring forth from the toothy howls of the slack-jawed demons. It was meant to represent the change of the seasons, the warm balm of summer compared to the bitterness of winter.

Shuffling closer to the heat, she wondered idly if it was warmer across the Sea of Nippon, in Kamiki and Sei'an and Kusa. The seasons meant little to Kamui and its inhabitants, but they meant even less to Ezofuji, whose twin peaks were smothered beneath a thick layer of permafrost.

There was a sudden, sharp hoot.

She flinched reflexively, her hand going to the small switchblade strapped to her forearm.

And again.

She stiffened, snarling under her breath. Owls were not rare in Kamui or Wep'Keer, as guardians of the land, and they were even more common in Yoshpet, but up here, they were definitely bad news.

There was a third hoot, accompanied by a flutter of feathered wings. She could pinpoint it this time, echoing off the cogs and branches of the metal tree.

She sidled along the wall, pressing her back firmly against it to get a better view of the trespasser. A roll of thunder sounded. A long, potent pause. And then a fork of lightning erupted from the Heavens, illuminating the small, round figure in the spidery boughs.

It seemed an ordinary owl, its head turned towards the stormy spectacle, but it wasn't quite, its feathers were a faded, burnished colour of gold.

She knew of only one person who had an owl like that.

Tuskle.

She relaxed, and emerged from the shadows into the centre of the Shrine. "You know that I don't appreciate being tailed, Tuskle."

The owls head twisted round to stare at her, its liquid black eyes focusing on the girl on the clock face. There was another burst of movement, the whisper of wings as another owl emerged from the darkness and settled next to the first. It's equally inquisitive eyes staring dispassionately from the mass of silver feathers.

Now she had no doubt. It was definitely Tuskle. The two simply sat, staring at her blankly. "Please..."

"Please?" The birds echoed, cutting her off. Their throaty hoots mimicking her sarcasm.

She stared. They stared. She blinked first. "Who are you?" She murmured, startled. These certainly weren't Tuskle's owls. Hers couldn't speak, for a start.

"Who are you?" They repeated. Now that she looked closer, they no longer looked so similar. They were bigger, taller, eagle owls armed with demonically sharp beaks and two tufts for ears. And even, something that looked like Kanji on their chests, illegible but unmistakeable in the half-light.

She glanced around. She couldn't see anyone. But she had little doubts, somebody was playing a trick on her, someone who was probably laughing at her right now.

"I am Lika." She gave a mock-bow, a dry smile alighting on her lips. "Saviour of the Oina tribe."

"Lika? I am Shonshi." The gold one hooted softly.

"And I Tsujikan." The silver owl replied, echoing his brother's melodic tone.

"We are the Guardians of Wawku Shrine." Now she was certain. Her smile turned into a scowl of disbelief.

"I've never heard of any guardians of this Shrine." She pouted.

"Never heard of us?" Their cries turned mocking.

"I was imprisoned by the gold demon, Lechku."

"And I by the silver demon, Nechku."

But that, that wasn't possible, it couldn't be possible. She had researched the Shrine, had studied every text, had poured over every scroll, every legend and every myth. And never once had there been a single mention of guardians of Wawku Shrine. Yet, somehow it made sense, it seemed to, there atop the shrine with the wind tearing through her hair.

"How can you talk though?"

"Talk? We are spirits."

"You sought us out, you spoke to us."

"So we are speaking to you." The owl's voices rung in her ears, their melodic tone seeping into her and burying itself beneath her skin.

"I didn't seek you out though; I just came up here to pray."

"To pray? To pray for the prophecy to be lifted?"

"You know?"

"We know. We know it can be changed."

"It can?!" Surprise and hope erupted in her mind, and the dull blanket smothering her thoughts was swept aside by her emotions. If it could be changed... Then that changed everything. She no longer had to be the bane of Kamui, she didn't have to live up to anyone's expectations or beliefs of her, good or bad. She could be herself. And that made her feel more alive than she had felt in a long time.

"It can."

"A tincture to ease the burdens." There it was again.

"A chant to ease the soul." Already the calm had begun to seep back into her, to numb the electric that danced across her skin. It raised a memory in her, as she tried to clear the fog of her thoughts, that she had heard the voice before...

"The Spirit Gate will lead the way." The owls cut across her reminiscing.

"But, I've tried, I don't know how to open it, I can't remember." As she spoke, she could feel her will slowly ebbing, her anger and frustration slowly dying, as if it no longer mattered, as if the prophecy was worthless, meaningless. Her voice fell to a low, hushed murmur.

"We will help."

She reached across, they dropped a small glass bottle and a thin scrap of scroll into the palm of her hand. The bottle was simple functional, corked to hold in a few precious drops of a thick, mahogany liquid.

"Are you sure?"

"We are certain. The Gate will yield as Ezofuji yielded all to your abilities." Lika shivered as the memories crept under her and into her, burying their way into her mind. "Neither God nor Demon can impede your future. Your powers are not tied to the wax and wane of the Gods and their ilk, but neither are they reliant on the rise and fall of the Master. You will pass."

They took off in a series of short sharp wing beats, leaving a storm of gold and silver feathers to cascade to the floor.

"Wait!" She cried after them, desperate to make sense of their riddle. "Please, I don't know what you mean!"

But they were already gone, two metallic flecks fast disappearing into the haze of the storm. And Lika was left to journey back down Ezofuji on her own, their words ringing in her ears.


	5. Startled Dreams

_Startled Dreams_

"Go away Kai!"

It had taken Tuskle less than a heartbeat to inform the entire tribe of her whereabouts, and they had all gathered in front of where the trail emptied out its pilgrims, just northwest of the Affun gate.

"How could you be so irresponsible!" Kemu had raged.

"Lika, think of the tribe." Samickle had ordered.

"I'm sorry, but I had to." Tuskle had muttered.

"Please Lika, we only want what's best for you." Kai had pleaded.

All of them. The entire village of Wep'Keer shouting and scolding, pleading and arguing with her in a cacophony of voices. Her mind rang with ache from the sheer volume of noise.

Only Oki said nothing. He remained stoically, and uncharacteristically, silent. He stood towards the back of the crowd, not quite looking at her.

"Just leave me alone!" She had shouted, causing them all to scatter out of her way. She had silenced a quip, and thrust her hands outwards, bearing them like weapons. Didn't they know her powers didn't work that way? Hadn't Kemu and Tuskle neglected to tell them that she _couldn't control them_?

Only a single figure refused to move out of her way – Tosu's ma.

She had glared fiercely at Lika, anger raging behind her stork mask. Cradled in her plump arms, was Tosu. No longer Tosu the boy, or Tosu the pup. Oh no. He was Tosu the otter.

That had been her fault.

Shame had flooded her veins, burning her cheeks behind her mask, flushing the tips of her ears scarlet. The thought of it had brought bile back to the front of her mouth, she had swallowed it hastily, feeling it scald the back of her throat.

Tosu's ma had spat at her feet, then quickly shuffled out of her way.

Tears had threatened at the corner of Lika's eyes, angry tears that swam in her vision. She had wanted to curse, she wanted to scream and shout and damn the whole lot of them. Didn't they know it wasn't her fault? Did they honestly think she had _wanted _to turn Kamui's little warrior into a little otter?

She'd started off at a sprint, back towards the familiar faint glow of the village. She could still hear the woman's boasting, the arrogance and ignorance that poisoned her voice. She had swallowed her anger, channelling into through her body. No one had moved after her. No one had lifted a finger to stop her. No one except Kai.

She had cursed, if luck was with her, with a decent head start, she'd reach the village before Kai, hopefully in time to...

Luck was clearly not on her side.

Kai had bounded across her, and sped to a stop in front. That was when she shouted at her, words tearing out of her throat.

Her sister recoiled, as if stung, hands clasping at the pendant around her neck. Her black eyes widened with upset from behind her deer mask.

"F... Fine." Her words trembled with the threat of tears. "Maybe I will."

Regret flooded Lika, she reached out. "Wait..." But it was too late, the small brown wolf shot across the path and fled Wep'Keer too fast for anyone to catch up with, too upset for anyone to reach.

Lika was stunned. That wasn't like Kai. Normally, she was calm and collected, no matter what you threw at her. Usually, she weathered the storm of her sister's anger without comment or question. Generally...

Realisation struck her.

It had been happening more and more recently, Kai's mood swings, her sudden upsets and loss of temper. And Oki's silence. Oh Gods.

She raced back to her tent, the eyes of the entire tribe pressing into her back. She hoped, she prayed.

_'Please don't let it be true.'_

Oki would kill her. No, he would more than kill her, he'd pin her to Wawku Shrine and let her hang there until the birds ate her. Her hand shot to her throat. She passed Kemu's house, then Samickle's, skidding down the icy ramp. Then to her own.

To the one she had, up until a few months ago, shared with her elder sister Kai. Until Kai had married Oki. Why hadn't she seen it coming? She cursed her own self-absorption, the prophecy that had distracted her from her sister's life. It seemed obvious now, natural.

She flung aside the hide door. It offered little resistance. There he was, sitting, legs crossed, in front of the fire at the centre of their tent, staring intently into the flames. He looked up as she entered, his eyes burrowing into her.

"Where is she?" His voice was calm, icy calm.

"Somewhere towards Ezofuji, Yoshpet, I don't know! But when were you going to tell me!" Panic flooded her, panic at her sister's disappearance and annoyance at her sudden secrecy.

"We were going to tell you when you were ready."

"Which would be when, Oki?"

He stood up, stretching to his full height. In the small tent, he seemed comically oversized, dwarfing everything inside. But in reality, he was overbearing, too close for comfort in the confined space. He stared down at her.

"When you were ready to grow up."

She blinked, taken aback by his bluntness. He stretched, his hand never moving from the sword at his hilt. She shuffled backwards, trying to keep her heart from speeding up, her hands from becoming unsteady. But they were all part wolf, and they could all smell fear. Oki sighed, and ran his hands through his mane.

"We all have to learn Lika. Kutone taught me. It's just a matter of finding what works for you." He held out a hand, there, lying in the palm, was a tiny, battered wooden pendant. The crest was not Oina, but it seemed almost strangely familiar, in a way that nudged at her thoughts and probed at her memories. "Take it."

She dutifully removed it from him, and examined it carefully. It was a tiny rosary, made up of thousands of tiny, blown glass beads that glinted in the firelight, at the end, the pendant hung freely. "Why are you...?"

"When you were taken, I sought not to return you, but to slay the beast. Kutone saw the selfishness in me and refused to glow, and when I saw what Nagi could do, what Bokunenjin could do... I felt humiliated."

"You mean to say you made an ass of yourself." She raised an eyebrow at him.

He grinned wryly. "You could say it like that. But, either way, when I fled, when you were rescued by Amaterasu, I found what you're holding there."

"What does it mean?"

He shrugged. "I'm still not entirely sure. Tuskle says if you look closely, each and every bead contains a kanji representing something. But the only thing I thought when I saw it was realisation of what an ass I'd been." His grin returned momentarily, then died, replaced with a serious, sombre look. "But I'm serious about one thing Lika. Whether we choose it or not, a storm is coming. I'm needed elsewhere, but Kamui is still going to be in danger."

He placed his hand over hers, closing it into a fist around the necklace. "And I still need someone to look after Kai for me. So whatever anyone has told you, whatever you believe is best, can you please just care for Kai while I'm gone. Promise?" His eyes burned with the gravity of the situation.

"I promise."

He bowed his head, and they tapped each other's wrists in the customary Oina way. And with that, he left, exiting the tent into the blizzard after Kai.

It was her own words that echoed in her head. _'I promise.'_

She prayed that she could keep it.

She drew the tincture out of her robes, along with the thin slip of paper resting it on the low table. She shook herself. She didn't need it anymore. She could prove to everyone that she was good without their help, she could look after Kai.

She turned and busied herself with preparations for a meal, her stomach snarling from lack of food. She fancied, once or twice, that she heard the soft hoot of owls, the clink of glass or the rustle of paper. But whenever she turned, she was alone.

She ate alone, savouring each mouthful as only a starving man could. Ezofuji's winding paths whet her appetite like nothing else ever could. Kai and Oki had still not returned.

She finished, and her mind drifted lazily to the tincture, and the paper. The paper had flown, lifted by the breeze, and settled on the furs at the far end of the room. But the tincture bottle, was nowhere to be seen.

She dismissed it, she had probable misplaced it either how.

The paper was thin, leathery to the touch, almost like vellum. She unfurled it tentatively, cautious not to disturb it.

A badly organised jumble of symbols greeted her eyes, neither decipherable nor legible. She shook her head. The owls must have been lying. A sleep crept into her, a deep, oppressive tiredness hung over her head. She had vowed to stay up for Kai, to apologise. Her mind dismissed it, she was probably racing Oki through the woods anyway. And they all knew what came at the end of that particular game.

And so with her mind slowly cloying, she drifted into a sudden, mindless sleep.


	6. Not a Dream

_Not a Dream_

She could feel weightless.

Every one of her senses felt blissfully numb.

There was nothing but an echoing, the soft drip of time at the back of her mind.

Nothing seemed to matter much, nothing except for the soft slow drip of time at the back of her mind and a single thought. A thought burning and glimmering with its own self importance.

There was the rustle of feathers, and laughter, low, inviting laughter.

There was the flutter of wings, and she turned.

Her body felt encased in honey.

An owl, perched on top of an old black tree, laughing at her, taunting her. She cursed it, and went to scold it.

But it moved, springing into the air before settling on another branch behind.

_'Come. Come.'_

She followed. Some part of her mind protested, her reason refused to obey. But they were smothered, buried under the gentle allure of the owls' voices, the soft melodies that they taunted her with, disappearing further and further into the forest of her mind.

All was well. Nothing was wrong. Here in her mind everything seemed childish, a game, a game of cat and mouse in the dark, black forest.

_'Play with us. Come with us.'_

The forest didn't seem remotely scary, the trees with their branches comically outstretched, their claws scarcely touching her.

Memories hung from their spindly boughs, whistling in the wind. They taunted her also, dulling as she drew closer, evaporating before she could touch them.

Then something struck at her, something hard and real.

And again. She flinched, recoiling, writhing and wriggling away from it. It was just a dream, the pain was nothing, it would leave, it was just a...

Agony flared up her right side. Her conviction fled.

A voice rang in her mind, laughing at her.

_'This is not a dream. Not anymore.'_


	7. Murmuring of Souls

_Murmuring of Souls_

She felt a sharp pain strike at her side, the lash of rope on her skin. She squirmed away from it, desperate to get away from the sting.

"Hmph. So you are alive." The voice was gravelly and masculine, deep and booming, with a dark undercurrent of threat. "I suggest you get up, or I will use this again."

The threat provoked her into movement, and she peeled her eyes open, scrambling across the wood floor away from the figure. She scrambled right into the cold, unyielding metal bars of a cage.

The demon was a gaudy yellow, its cream patterned top pinned together by a button and scarcely covering its bulging belly. The demon slip was tattered and worn, with the red merchant kanji painted on. It harrumphed once more, and shuffled across towards her.

She was inside, and he was out. She was caught like a rat in a trap.

He chuckled. "You'll fetch a fine price little miss. All brushed up and shiny with that mask of yours, there'll be demons falling over each other to get a bite of you!" She hissed, and spat at him. He simply laughed. "You're a feisty one, aren't you? Never worry, Shitai will take good care of you."

He hoisted her cage, and she felt herself wheel around out of control as he slung it up onto the back of a caravan. He leant forward and slid the catch open. His breath smelt of decaying meat and sake. She gagged.

The caravan was small, poky. The air smelt of urine and wild animal, a stench that clung to her nostrils. Little to no light entered through the high, barred windows, and where it did it fell in hard white shafts that illuminated the decaying floorboards below. He gave her a nudge with the butt of his whip, and she scurried out of his reach, across the hay strewn floor.

The smell was even worse within. The demon gave a low, rumbling laugh at her disgust. "You'll get used to it little miss, it's just that we're not used to serving ladies like you around here." His sarcasm was fond and paternal, and it made her feel sick to her stomach.

He shut the door with a clang, and the bolts thundered shut. The smell and the light and her disgust overwhelmed her, and she vomited into a nearby bucket. She watched it swill, rich and fresh over the cold, pale swill of week old bile. She vomited again. When she looked back up, she steadied herself. She felt lightheaded, her stomach emptied in a matter of seconds.

As her eyes grew accustomed to the light, she could make out two other figures in the caravan with her, one, sat bolt upright on the bench, his posture stiff and self-righteous as he stared into the faded wooden panelling as if imagining he were somewhere else, but it was the other that caught her attention.

He was slumped in the far corner, huddled, muttering blindly to himself. He was also a Oina.

"Wali?" She reached across towards him. He twitched nervously.

"L... Lika?" He glanced up at her. His mask couldn't hide his paranoia, the direness of his situation. He looked as though he'd been in here for weeks, months even. His hair was lank and matt, gathering into greasy clumps entangled with grime and old food. His clothes were ragged, filthy and soiled, and his mask was chipped, gouged in places as if by claws.

"By the Gods, what happened to you?" She whispered horrified, her hand travelling to a thick gouge that split the mask almost down to the core. She shuddered to think what would've happened if it had travelled any further.

Her mind answered her anyway.

It would've killed him. No questions about it. The cut would've split the mask in two, causing it to fall off and Wali to die in agony.

He flinched away from her touch, and raised a trembling finger to his lips. "Shh! He might hear." He gestured to a cut almost splitting his cheek. "This one I got for talking too much." He stammered. He gestured to another, a deeper, smaller one under his left eye. "And this one I got for interrupting him."

"But, how did you get here?"

"I told you they were after me, I told you they were coming for me, they got me on the outskirts of Kamui, by Lake Nakoa. They ambushed me, dragged me out here..."

"Shh!" The voice was harsh and commanding.

They both flinched. But it wasn't the imp, it was the man.

"Who's he then?" She muttered. Wali threw a nervous glance in the man's direction, before looking back at her.

"That man's General Hageshi, they got him at the city checkpoint. He ordered the guards to lift the drawbridge, but, but there were too many of them." He stabs a finger up at the window. "They got across before the gatekeepers so much as stood a chance of raising it, absolute slaughter. You, you see, we've been travelling a day or less worth behind a d..demon hoard. They demolish anything in their path, had no trouble with kidnapping General Hageshi."

Realisation slowly dawns on her. She has heard this all before, she knew the end of Wali's tale the moment he said the man's name. He knew the man's inevitable fate. Murder, as a spectacle for demons. Which meant...

Her blood turned stone cold in her veins. Panic rose in her throat. She must have gone through the Spirit Gate.

There was no other explanation, no other reasoning. The owls! The owls in her dream! They were Shonshi and Tsujikan... Her mind put the names together.

_'Shonshitsujikan.'_

Time lost. They weren't owls, or spirits, or even guardians. They were Lechku and Nechku, the twin demons of Ezofuji. And they had managed to trick her through the Spirit Gate, just like last time. But, the tincture, she had never drunk it, she had never recited the incantation they gave her... She realised. The hoots of owls she heard, the disappearance of the tincture bottle, her drowsiness, she didn't need to recite the incantation, only to read it. And they took over from there.

She worked out the time in her head. 3 months, she remembered hearing about General Hageshi's kidnap and murder 3 months ago. It couldn't be much longer than that.

That meant the Spirit Gate led elsewhere, to other places than Kamui more than 100 years in the past. And the owls, they must have murdered Ishaku to get to the gate. By killing its guardian, and taking his sword, the key, they had ensured their plan couldn't fail.

There was a sudden shudder, the roar of the carriage juddering to a halt. Lika was jolted forwards. The bucket of sick tumbled and emptied itself onto the floor, carpeting it with a pale cream.

"Where are we?"

Wali trembled. Even the General seemed to grow resigned and world weary. It was him who answered, without once turning to face her, his voice hushed but unbroken. "We're at the easternmost end of Taka pass."

"What?"

They both stared at her as if she were out of her mind. She blushed at her own naivety. She went to ask further, but there was a sudden, quick jolt and the caravan began to list.

Further, and further, it tilted towards the right, tossing the bucket, all of its contents and the three passengers onto the far wall. Lika winced as the wood rose to meet her ribcage with a painful smack. There was a whimper, and a low groan, as Wali and the General met a similar fate.

All fell quiet.

The door of the caravan was peeled open. Light poured in, temporarily blinding them. And the roar of demons met their ears.


	8. Howling Wind

_Howling Wind_

Panic balled in her stomach, winding her gut into knots.

From the sound of it, there had to be at least a hundred, maybe more, demons clustered outside the wooden walls of their caravan, waiting for its contents to be unloaded.

An arm, then three, swiped into the caravan, fumbling blindly for its occupants. Wali gave a startled squeak, and attempted to cower at the opposite end. The hands quickly found him, and grasped around his shoulder, forcibly hauling the struggling Oina out into the unforgiving light of day.

"It's Noroi Market. The Demon Market. It's where the demons sell slaves." The General gave a snort of derision. "And where people are bought." He stands, and his eyes began to glitter with a dangerous fatalism. "I shall go to my end with dignity." He drew his katana, and ran a finger along the edge. "Those demons will taste Kazedorobo…"

Lika supressed a startled yelp. He couldn't… He mustn't! Noroi market, that was where he died. Where he drew his sword on the crowd of imps, and was thrown to the chimera. He was going to be ripped apart.

She went to say something, to dissuade him from his suicide mission. She felt a sudden pressure on her, her windpipe grew tight, the words were silenced mid-gasp. The voice in her dreams returned to her, with a soft whisper of words.

_'I wouldn't do that.'_

She snarled, and the General turned to glare at her. She would tell him, or so the Gods help her she would…

The pressure on her windpipe grew stronger, turning into a vicious stranglehold. Every single word vanished from her mind. Dark spots danced in front of her eyes, until all she could see was the single shaft of light that illuminated their cell.

The voice came again, not a whisper or a laugh this time, but a command, laced with a dark, urgent threat.

_'If you continue to resist, I will come there personally to retrieve you.'_

She tried to reply, to respond, but her mind was blank of anything except the crushing pain against her throat.

_'Fortunately, I have no intention of killing you.'_

She felt the pain in her throat ease, if only slightly, allowing her to breathe again.

_'But I assure you, I will not let you ruin this.'_

She nodded blankly in response as sense flooded back to her. She was alone. The General had been taken. She couldn't stop them, not here, not now. She rushed to the shaft.

The roars of Chimera and the jeers of imps reached her ears. A shouting. She instantly recognised it as a prayer, a loud, last act of defiance. She could make out words, distinguish phrases from the rabble. Sorrow flooded through her.

He was praying to Amaterasu.

He was asking her for strength to battle his demons, to slay the hoard that lay in front of him. His voice never once trembled, never once wavered from his harsh battle cry.

The imps hadn't fallen quiet, their screams of retort continued, their titters of laughter and hoots of amusement still echoed around the area. The roars of the chimera grew louder and crueller, metal ringing as they strained against their metal leashes towards the immobile figure.

Lika grasped at the doorsill, and attempted to haul herself up. She failed, and so settled for peering over the ledge. On tiptoes, she could spy the figure, could watch the hubbub and commotion unfold, could see as the imps tore the chimera from their binding, could do nothing but gasp sharply as the monsters charged towards the man…

A hand grasped her, then two, dragging her out of the caravan. Her body protested as it was scraped against the hard surface of wood. She yelped, and a rough hand covered her mouth, smelling of earth and fetid meat.

She twisted and turned, wriggled and writhed, scratched and clawed as she tried to break free of the grip, tried to gain purchase in the callous wooden surface. She found none.

The demon's grip grew tighter. She bit into the soft, hairy mass of his palm. He gave a screech of annoyance, and his hold slipped. She scrambled onto the floor out of his reach, spitting the acrid taste of his blood out of her mouth.

"Well don't just stand there, help me!" The imp Shitai growled. His audience roared with laughter, until another imp stood forward.

"If you can't handle a small girl..." His voice made her blood curdle, and a shiver ran down her spine. It was strange, a hard, high-pitched accent that she couldn't place that came from a mouth that she couldn't see.

There was a muffled thud.

The imp dropped in. It seemed alien, all bone and tufts of scraggly black hair. A horn projected out of its forehead, and two tusks hung ominously from its jaw line. She gave a startled hiss. The imp chuckled in return. Then she saw them, floating around the figure, orbiting him silently. Seven stone skulls, glowing a murky orange-red.

She went to move, to run, to fight, to do something – a single skull broke free of its orbit. She didn't see it until it was too late.

It swung down, and with a resounding crunch, collided with the back of her head.

The world swam nauseatingly. She slumped forward. The demon watched as she collided with the floor. Pain ricocheted throughout the back of her skull. The imp moved forward, and she felt his bony arms around her waist, slinging her onto his shoulders.

He tried to move, to protest, but all she felt was a dull numbness spreading through her body. She refused to pass out, she couldn't pass out.

The imp slung her up into the arms of the merchant, who promptly emptied her into the pen. She stumbled, staggering into the centre. The other imp sprung out, and straightened out. He threw a smug glare at her, before turning back to Shitai.

"I retrieved her. By rights I ought to have her."

"Ah! But by whose rights?" The merchant paled, shuffling back a few paces from the imposing form of the black imp.

"What are you saying Shitai?" His command turned into a violent scowl. He took a step forward, the skulls dancing before him threateningly. The other imp took another stumble back.

"What I'm, I'm saying is... uh..."

"He's had a better offer." Another imp moved forward from the crowd.

This one was short, a strange mixture of tattered red shoshen clothes and tufts of matted orange hair. She recognised him, only just, as a red imp from the tales of the south, Kamiki, Shinshu and Agata. Except, there was something not quite right about him. The kana on his forehead read 'ri', and every other one she'd seen had read 'ro'.

Could it be? She dismissed it.

He strode up to the black imp, back ramrod straight. His head was covered by a reed hat, and strapped to his back was a simple wood samisen. The other imp gave a snort of derision, and bore his tusks at the intrusion.

The other imp, strangely, didn't so much as flinch. But neither did he draw his samisen. He simply gave a slight nod of his head.

"I have offered Shitai 20 hand carved samisens, and 200 yen. I do not believe you can top my offer." He seemed self-confident, assured, his gaze never lifting from that of the black imp.

"1000 yen." The black imp's voice boomed throughout the market.

The crowd gave a titter of excitement. First a fight, then this!

"20 samisens, 10 drums, 10 carved stone skulls and 2000 yen."

A twitch ran down the black imp. He had been more than outbid. He had been humiliated. And Lika knew from the way he stiffened in defeat that he did not take humiliation lightly.

He raised a hand, the other imp never moved. A stone skull slid out of formation to face the merchant. In a single move, the red imp unsheathed his samisen and drew it down in a thundering slash across the skull. It crumbled.

The black imp gave a yowl of pain and leapt back, enraged.

The red imp simply laughed. "Leave the fighting to the Namahages."

Lika could see the emotions running through the body of the black imp, anger, annoyance, and finally, acceptance. He backed down, though she could see his resentment as he thrust his way out of the crowd and back into the pass.

Victorious, the imp turned to Shitai. "You shall have your payment by Monday. Now, may I?" The merchant gave a shaky, nervous nod, and stood out of the way. With a quick hop, the imp had crossed the wooden border of the pen and walked across towards her.

She sprung out of the way, and into the hands of a hundred grasping demons. She gave a surprised cry, and leapt back forward. The crowd gave a simultaneous roar of laughter, including the red imp.

He reached her, and she tried to suppress the revulsion in her, to settle the queasiness in the pit of her stomach. So this was how it would be. She was doomed to end her days as a demons housemaid, or worse, his snack.

There was no point running, or fighting, not anymore, not even as he raised the metal leash to tighten around her neck.

She was not like General Hageshi, she could not pray to the Gods to save her when she knew that they would abandon her just as quickly as Hageshi, leave her to be ripped apart by the chimera in the pen next door. To resist them would be suicide, and one that she wasn't overly keen on committing.

He leant in close to her ear as he tightened her noose, and spoke in a low whisper. "The Master is waiting for you." He didn't smell bad, for an imp, and his voice held the same high-pitch and hard accent as the black imp.

She didn't answer him as he led her off out of the pass.


	9. Barbaric Sentience

_Barbaric Sentience_

The sun had begun to set by the time they reached Shinshu Field. It had taken longer than she had expected to pass through the forest of Agata, but then, whenever Lika had fantasised about travelling across the Sea of Nippon, she had never factored in the small red imp dragging her along by a chain.

The Agata forest was so different from the forests that she knew, from the dark mass of Yoshpet and the images of Catcall forest. It was heavily shaded, swampy, the trees tall but leafless and the water clear and deep.

Whenever a human passed, be it a man, a woman or on one memorable occasion a strange, familiar looking man and his dog, they ducked, hiding in the rich foliage of the forest. Demons, however, were another matter.

There seemed to only be imps in this region, and instead of posing any threat, greeted the duo with the flurry of music, pipes, drums and samisens wheedling bizarre folk renditions that Lika had only ever heard from stories. They smiled at them, joked with the red imp and laughed bemusedly at Lika, occasionally offering a demon fang or a small pile of yen.

When Lika had asked what it was for, the imp had simply answered that it was a tribute to 'the Master'.

She shuddered to imagine, to so much as think to what this 'Master' was like, that controlled the imps and bent demons to his whim.

But the images crept into her mind anyway as she clambered over the rocky ledge and into the widening vista of Shinshu Field. Images of the black imp, only bigger, or a Namahage Shogun with fangs like glaives, or maybe an ogre that scattered thunder from its hooves...

The imp broke through her reverie. "Welcome. To my home at least." He gave a wry grin.

"This isn't where the Master lives?" She tried to conceal her surprise. This place was humongous, spread into a wide, leafy plain. Bigger than Wep'Keer, yet green and vibrant, a small dojo beside a mermaid spring, a set of pottery kilns by a cavern on the far side, and then, she noticed, dominating the centre of the plain, a Guardian Sapling.

It was bigger than Kamui's, bursting into fresh pink blossom as if it were the onset of spring and swaying gently in the breeze. This wasn't like she'd imagined it, it was better.

The imp chuckled at her question. "No. He has a throne room for himself."

His answer made her blood run cold. A throne room. She had been in a throne room once, a long time ago. And this plain... It seemed so familiar now, as the imp lead her across. Yes, she knew this place; she'd seen it before, but where?

The imp tugged at her leash softly, annoyed at her sudden stop. She turned to him, panic blossoming inside her.

"Where are we going?"

He blinked, as if surprised by her sudden outburst. "The Moon Cave."

By the Gods.

Her heart rose, nestling in her throat. Memories flooded back to her, her memories and those of every myth she'd ever read about the south, of every legend she'd ever heard from across the Sea of Nippon.

Orochi, Orochi lived in the Moon Cave. He was the Master of the imps, he was the one who had devoured 99 maidens before he had been vanquished by Nagi and a white wolf the legends had referred to as Shiranui. And then he had been killed again, 100 years later, by Amaterasu and the descendant of Nagi, Susano.

He couldn't be alive, let alone be the Master of the imps.

The imp tugged at the chain, his irritation spreading. She felt herself jerk, and she instinctively stumbled forward beside him.

They reached a hill, and a large blue torii gate. Her spirits sank, all hope she had left was shattered. There was only one thing at the bottom of this hill. The Moon Cave.

She tried to run, jerking her head back on the chain. It worked. The chain slipped out of the imps hands, and she started off at a sprint.

She had to get out of there.

Suddenly, it hit her mind like a vice. The voice. It was louder this time, stronger and clearer, forceful, pressing into her thoughts.

_'I will not have you run away from me.'_

Her limbs stuttered, and failed her. She tried to force them to move, to push her forward, but they seemed to judder to a halt of their accord, to falter and slide away from beneath her. She hit the floor with a sharp smack.

The imp soon caught up with her, seizing her by the chain and pulling her sharply to her feet. He was more than angry, he was practically livid.

"No one escapes Baikokudo!" He snarled, drawing his samisen sharply underneath her chin. The jagged edge nicked at her neck. She winced as it drew a thin line of blood.

The imp froze. She could see him stiffen with terror. He paled, and then nodded slowly.

"The Master wants you back in one piece."

The remainder of the journey was silent. She could feel the waves of the imp's resentment radiating off of him. She hoped that her own resentment answered him. If she had had her way, she would be in Kamiki by now, safe, away from the God-forsaken cave. And if he had had his way, she would be dead, her blood watering the field of Shinshu.

But neither had their way, Orochi only had his.

They had entered the cave alone. The imp Baikokudo muttered some incantation and hastily pushed her through, before repeating the same for himself.

She soon found out why. The cave was sealed, impenetrable. She rested a single hand on it, and felt demon souls spark, straining from their bindings to leap to her hand. Baikokudo noticed her fascination, and gave a dark, humourless laugh.

"That's what the Master does to those who betray his service."

She tried to swallow her panic.

Betrayal had never played heavily on her mind as an option, but now, she shunned it. Spending her life at the foot of Ezofuji was one thing, but spending it as a gate was worse.

Not that, she supposed, she had much of a life left.

She would become his 100th sacrifice, and, according to folklore, he would become a God in his own right. A shudder of aversion passed through her. She would help the demon become a deity, as the prophecy had foretold.

Baikokudo gave her a shove forward, and then sprung down a gaping hole that split the staircase in two. That certainly hadn't been there last time.

Running was not an option, neither was betraying him. She couldn't fight him, nor appease him. So as the imp raised a rope for her to climb down, she had little alternative but to lower herself into the abyss.


	10. Demonically Good

_Demonically Good_

They had crowded around her: green imps, red imps, yellow, blue and black. Even some of colours she'd never seen before had clustered around their Master's latest victim to tease and quip. Baikokudo had been forced to shove them aside as he lead her through the calcified cavern.

At the very mention of Orochi's name, the two gatekeepers had hurriedly pushed aside the imposing stone doors, opening the way forward.

And there it had been. The Moon Cave, a fortress of demons, imps and others alike, rivalled only by Oni Island and the interior of Wawku Shrine. It was centred around a lift mechanism, powered by a bored looking green imp at a lever, and doors and corridors split from the centre in a multitude of directions.

In a word, the imp had lowered the duo and their chorus into the basement, a smaller, but still spacious room that funnelled into a single corridor. She had been lead through twists and turns, clambering up narrow stairwells and through cramped tunnels until she had reached it.

A Shrine to the fire God Moegami lay in the very belly of the beast.

Baikokudo glared at her pointedly. "It's traditionally where the sacrifices pray, for forgiveness. The ceremonial robes are by the Shrine. As you can see, they haven't been used in a while, but they should suit you just fine. Enjoy."

And with a sharp quip and sarcastic glare, he had shut her only escape route.

Lika turned to stare at the statue. It was at least twice the size of her, wings gesturing, outstretched upwards towards the heavens. Sorrow overwhelmed her. This was it. There would be no Amaterasu or Shiranui to save her, not even Oki or Kai would know. To them, she would still be in Kamui, screaming about the prophecy, about how it was unfair.

It seemed ironic how staring in the face of death made her put things in perspective. Now she no longer had a choice about fulfilling the prophecy.

She slipped into the sacrificial robes. It was simply a pure white kimono, freshly cleaned and pressed despite the years with a yellow strip that ran across her shoulder to her waist, and a blue skirt. The clothing clung to her, as if as desperate as she was to escape their fate.

Tears threatened at the corners of her eyes, stinging them. And for the first time in years, since she had seen the Ark of Yamato rise out of Lake Laochi and enter the heavens, she fell to her knees before the Shrine and prayed.

She prayed to Moegami, to Amaterasu, to Itegami, to Gods she had only ever read about: Gekigami, Kabegami, Tachigami.

But her prayers, no matter how fervent, no matter how desperate, no matter how pleading, were not answered. She gave a sigh, half of resignation, half of desperation, and lit a small candle beside the Shrine with a stick of burning incense.

There was a crash. She stood up with a start. A loud, angry curse came from a room next door, one separated from hers by a wall of ice.

A hiss, as a brand of fire struck the wall, melting it, and yet another imp strode in. This one was short, clad from head to toe in olive greens and earthy browns, with a simple apron around his waist. The kana 'ri' decorated his demon slip.

The imp approached, and peered at her. It administered a vicious poke to her ribs.

Lika hissed, shooting backwards. There came what sounded like a snort from behind the slip, and then a hoot, and then a high-pitched sound of affront.

"No need to act like that."

She started back, and gave her wounded sides a rub. The imp ignored her shock, and began to circle her loosely, occasionally pausing to poke her in the ribs with his long wooden ladle. The end dripped with some unmentionable liquid that he managed to smear across her furs. The smell of troll fat and ogre liver reached her nostrils, and she gagged.

The imp paused in front of her, and cocked his head to one side.

"Well you're a skinny one aren't you?"

"Pardon?" She recovered from her temporary speechlessness.

The imp shrugged dismissively. "The Master prefers his sacrifices plump, a little bit of meat never does him any harm. But you," he punctuated his remark with another short sharp jab to the ribs. "Are all skin and bone. The Master will use you to pick his teeth. And what am I supposed to cook to go with you, hmm? The Master needs _something_ to fill him up for the next 100 years."

Did she detect a hint of sarcasm at the ends of his words?

Lika held his eye line, and the imp returned her stare in kind. She was the one who looked away first. Satisfied, he gave a quick nod.

"What does it matter to you anyway? Come, come, have something to eat." He gave her a once over and nodded again. "You're making me hungry just looking at you."

He disappeared back past the ice wall at a trot, and Lika hurried after him into the main cavern, careful not to bump into or meet the eyes of the dozens of curious imps spread around the cave, staring at her retreating back with warily curious eyes.

They had every right to be wary. She wondered how many of their kind she had faced in Kamui, as well as Namahages and ogres. But she was certain it had never been this many, and certainly not all at once.

She stood no chance of escaping, of that Orochi had made explicitly clear.

Orochi.

The name stared a bizarre mixture of feelings in her, of both revulsion, and pity. He had ordered that no harm come to her, yet he was soon to devour her himself. She suspected the imps knew little to nothing of his mercy, not yet.

"Over here!" The imp chef waved from across what she assumed to be the kitchen quarters, brandishing his ladle like a sword. He quickly ushered her towards him, much to the bemusement of the on looking imps. Lika bowed her head, hoping and praying that they would ignore her and find someone easier to pick on.

For once, her prayers held weight, and as she moved towards the fat bronze caldera in the corner of the room, their eyes turned to pry elsewhere.

It was pleasantly warm in the kitchen, and the air surprisingly clean, in spite of the ominous column of orange-yellow smoke that rose from the boiling pot. The wood squealed, protesting under her feet, and another imp glanced up from two kilns, shocked.

"Ajimi! What, who is this? Why are you bringing her in here? The Master wouldn't like it if he realised..."

"My love for Orochi is rivalled only by my love of serving him hearty food." He made a sweeping gesture at Lika. "Does this look hearty to you?" Ajimi gave the imp a pointed glare as he hoisted himself up onto the platform above the steaming broth and ladled it into a generous wooden bowl.

With a nimble grace, he dropped from his perch and thrust it at her. "Just for you. My speciality, ogre liver and fried black demon horn."

She could've imagined that he grinned, he could've imagined that her face fell. Instead, their masks remained blank, impassive, so she settled for mumbling a brief thanks before sitting at a low slung table.

The chef returned to his position above the pot and continued to stir at his concoction, humming away quite happily, ever so occasionally turning half an eye on his latest customer.

She decided that it wasn't nearly as bad as it sounded. It was even quite nice if you ignored the chunks of troll fat and the odd eyeball that bobbed around lazily in the stew. It was certainly better than winter rations in Kamui, either way. Finishing the stew, she decided that it was probably better than Oki's cooking too.

She politely pushed it away. Ajimi swung down to her side. "It's good, isn't it?"

Lika nodded in what she hoped was an enthusiastic way. The imp seemed almost disappointed by her reaction, or rather, her lack of.

"You don't speak much, do you?" She nodded glumly, it wasn't that she didn't want to, or that she couldn't, but that she wasn't particularly in the mood to talk. "What's your name then, sweetheart?"

She muttered it softly, as though it was a disease, or a demon. "My name's Lika."

The bell began to toll in the background, each ring louder, more deafening, more condemning than a death sentence.

She felt her palms begin to sweat, her muscles grew taught, the nerves in the pit of her belly began to clench.

Now it was her turn.

The bell rang out, eight times. One ring for each head. Baikokudo stuck his head into the kitchen with a malicious smile. "Somehow I knew you'd find your way in here. Now, the Master wishes to see you." He gave a mock bow.

She turned back to the head chef. He shook his head, a strangely human gesture of pity. "Thank you, Ajimi."

And she left, swept out of the kitchen by Baikokudo and into the lift. Only this time, they were travelling upwards, to where the beast awaited her.


	11. Only the Impure

_**A/N: Sorry for the huge hiatus, this kind of got lost in the melee while life was going on. Should return to updating semi-regularly, so as a massive apology I'm going to upload two in one day.**_

_Only the Impure_

The ride up had been slow, the imp hadn't ceased moaning. He was tired, he had moaned, the Master had no idea, he moaned. By the time Lika eventually reached the top, her heart was beating fit to burst, her hands trembling with nerves.

At the top, was a spiral staircase leading to the observation platform. At the bottom sat a merchant imp, bursting out of his ill-fitting earth coloured clothes. He stared at her with a cruel, curiosity, and promptly attempted to sell her an assortment of knick-knacks: prayer slips, exorcism slips and gold dust, assuring her that she'd need them in the afterlife. She politely declined.

She was going to face the monster alone.

Baikokudo had left her at the bottom with another mocking bow and a smug titter of glee. Irritation boiled in her, but she smothered it. There was no point, not anymore.

Her nerves clamoured in the pit of her stomach, she could feel the inside of her turning slowly to ice. She felt as if, for a single moment, her heart stopped, and was replaced by a dull, rhythmic pound in her chest.

So this was it, the moment before she was eaten alive, before her soul was devoured into his black essence. Sorrow washed through her. She would never get a chance to say goodbye to Kai, let alone apologise to her. And Oki... She'd failed him. She couldn't even protect herself from the demons' schemes, let alone protect her sister.

She walked out onto the pedestal, and there he was.

The throne room seemed smaller, paint peeling from walls cracked and shattered, statues broken into jagged lumps of stone and the floor split into an uneven pattern.

He seemed to have aged since she had last seen him, his gold armour was gone, showing rows of black and red scales underneath torn and tattered from years of hard fighting. He looked tired, but unbeaten, the heads lying against the floor.

She took another step forward, and eight pairs of eyes turn to look at her, to stare at the lone figure on the platform. His gaze seemed to pass through her, through the nerves and the panic to where her spirit hid underneath. It unnerved her.

"Come down." It was the fire head who spoke, his voice a command, disturbingly soft yet laced with a silent, potent threat. A reminder that she had no other choice left.

She felt her legs almost give way as she descended the ramp to the centre of the cave, trembling with trepidation, knees knocking with nerves.

She stopped a few feet in front of him, so close she could feel the burning heat of flame's breath on her exposed skin.

His posture appeared reclining, his entire body taking comfort from the floor. But it was strained, pained, as if causing him ill. Then she noticed the wound that ran across the length of the flame head's neck.

Blood, blood poured from the open wound, where a sword had cleaved through scale and skin and sinew almost down to the bone below. The cut gaped, angry and red and raw, oozing a thick crimson liquid that dripped down the sweat of his neck and pooled in the cracks of the floor below, staining it scarlet.

The dark head gave a snort of impatience at her curiosity. The poison head joined with an irate growl. The flame head quickly silenced them with a commanding snap. "The villagers have grown wise to my presence. You will heal me."

She blinked back blankly. Had she heard right, had Orochi just asked her to heal him? She suppressed a gasp of shock, and a sigh of relief. He didn't want to eat her? She wasn't the final sacrifice?

Wait.

Her gratitude quickly soured to suspicion. What if she healed him, and then he ate her? What if she couldn't heal him? What if her powers refused to flow, if her mind refused to cooperate?

The flame head drew close, until he was inches from her own. She blushed furiously under the scrutiny, bowing her head to avoid the monster's gaze. "I can't."

"Why not?"

"I don't know how to." She closed her eyes, forcing them shut, waiting for the moment rows of teeth clamped around her, sealing her fate.

Instead, she felt the earth begin to tremble beneath her, then shudder, then shake. It took her a moment to realise what it was.

It was Orochi. He was laughing at her!

"I never back the wrong horse little girl."

"What do you mean, the wrong horse?"

The lips curled into a hungry smile. "I remember you. The little girl who wandered through the Spirit Gate." She felt the brush of a memory and shuddered. They came back to her now, from their years of misuse and the fog of her possession, clear, sharp and painful, digging into her mind like nails."I remember your power, the way it curled off you in waves, it was almost Divine. Almost. But you are no God. I have seen Gods." His expression fell into a snarl of reminisce. "And you are not one. You cannot burn me with your divinity, little girl. You can only strengthen me with your impurity."

She looked up from the floor, confused, and gazed straight into two predatory red eyes only inches from her own.

"Not even the Gods are entirely pure. But you, you are less so than most."

"No. Stop it!" The outburst came before she could stop it. Her hand flew over her mouth. She prayed that Orochi wouldn't turn on her for her reaction. Instead he laughed again, and a lone tail snaked around her ankles.

"You command the twin peaks of Ezofuji, yet you do not honour the Gods, and what about the boy, Tosu...?"

"Alright!" She shouted, flushed with annoyance. "I'll heal you." He stopped his verbal assault and watched her, smug.

She took a step forward, and he stretched out towards her. The wound looked even worse close up, an angry slash of red in the black. She reached out, hesitant to place her hand in the mass of muscle and tissue.

"Closer."

She took another hesitant step forward, and laid her hands in the mass, watching in a mixture of disgust and fascination as rivulets of dark crimson blood drew out of the body and carved their way down her hands and onto the pool of blood that flooded the floor below. She felt a squelch, and then the sickly warmth as the red soaked in through her fur soles and soaked her feet.

What now?

She had little idea of how her powers worked, perhaps... She shut her eyes and willed her spirit to cooperate, trying to force the loose coils of energy that nestled in her mind into the body before her.

Nothing happened.

"Do not be disheartened." His voice was surprisingly forgiving. "Try again."

She pulled herself together, inwards, feeling the way the energy snaked around her spirit. She drew an image, focused on it, let her mind draw from it. The image of Kai and Oki, on their wedding day; they were happy and healthy, glowing with joy, laughing as Lika messed up her lines and Kemu drunk himself under the table.

Still nothing happened.

Frustration boiled in her, anger and irritation at her abilities. A second image came, a fragment of a long forgotten memory. It startled her.

It was Orochi, in his true form. He was clad in golden armour, illuminating the throne room under the full, fatness of the harvest moon. He was laughing, the ground shaking with the force of his laughter, trembling as if before a tsunami. And 16 red eyes had watched her cross the floor, powerful and hungry.

A warmth flooded around her, flowing out of her palm and into the body. She heard the soft squelch as muscle and sinew wound themselves back together, as flesh and skin and scale pulled tightly back over the tissue.

She exhaled, and drew back.

He was complete, even more so, his body seemed to glow, strong and healthy in contrast to the strain and labour of a few minutes ago.

She, in comparison, felt exhausted, her hands were slick with the demon's blood and she swayed in the slight breeze that made its way into the cavern.

Orochi watched her silently, and then spoke. "Never the wrong horse." She staggered with light-headedness. His tail shot out, propping her back up. "The blood on your hands, my blood; it will heal you."

She shook her head firmly. Or at least she thought it was firmly. The last thing she wanted was demon blood coursing around her body.

"It is the least." She peered warily up at him, her tiredness destroying her inhibitions. He gave a sigh. "It will corrupt, that is true. But no harm will come over one drop, and you have already tasted it. The twin demons have done that much."

She raised a hand to her mouth, and tentatively drank a drop.

It tasted as foul as any medicine, but flooded her mouth with a multitude of tastes, her body with a sudden, incredible warmth and energy. She instantly felt better. No, she felt more than better. She felt amazing.

Eight heads grinned wistfully at her thirst. "Behold, the gift of the Orochi to mankind, the body of demons. Chishun!"

An imp appeared from the entranceway and scurried out onto the platform. "What is it Master? Were you not happy with your meal?" He seemed almost to pale as his eyes drifted over to where the girl was hungrily licking the bloodstains off of her hands.

"Chishun, take her to the cavern, make sure she is not seen, nor that she comes to any harm. Disguise her as an imp, and listen to me, no one must know,"

"Yes, Master." The imp tried, and failed, to conceal his astonishment at his Master's order.

Orochi simply ignored him. He didn't understand the girl. Orochi himself scarcely understood the magnitude of her powers.

She stood there, still swaying, albeit more steady, completely vulnerable, utterly alone. The thought struck him, that if he turned on her, that she wouldn't do anything to stop him. And yet she could.


	12. Multitude of Reflections

_Multitude of Reflections_

'_No. Not yet.' _Chikyu muttered into the abyss of their collective thoughts. The others coalesced in agreement. She was not ready for that yet.

He watched as the imp lead her back off into the labyrinth of the Moon Cave. This place had sunk and resurfaced countless times over its lifetime, even in his lifetime. Orochi himself had raised the Moon Cave from the bed of Lake Harami when the Ark of Yamato had embedded itself in the ice of the north.

He glanced up at the sky. It was clear, almost divine in its purity.

That would have to change.

'_So be it.' _Hikari harrumphed.

His thoughts turned back for a moment to the girl, and he felt a menial satisfaction grow and swell in his belly.

She was the key. Lechku and Nechku had been right, but for the wrong reasons. Her powers were not common, but neither were they rare. Throughout the history of Nippon, the history of Kamui, there had been those born with powers like hers. But she was different.

Their powers had been greater at times, stronger at times; but these were people who had been touched by the Gods, or blessed by the hand of Yami. They were capable of wielding extraordinary power, but they did not own it. They could control it, but they could not change the nature of their blessing.

They were tied to the balance of forces, the eternal war between the Gods; the Brush Gods, who sided with Amaterasu, and the Demons, who sided with Yami.

He had sided with Yami.

'_We still do.' _Kuriyami's voice came in a steady trickle of thoughts. He was soon answered by the remainder of the heads.

'_Only you.' _Kaminari reminded him.

'_Some of us still have our independence.' _Kyofu's mind babbled.

'_Independence will not spare us from Amaterasu.' _Chikyu remained steady, as he always did.

'_Neither will rolling over and letting our bellies be scratched!' _Hikari snarled across their mental divide.

'_Quiet!' _Kasai had tired of their squabbling. Between the eight of them, compromise was inevitable, and appeasing everyone impossible. In years past, they had always sided together on the most important issues. Together, they had chosen to side with Yami as the Ark of Yamato fled the onslaught, they had chosen to eliminate the celestials, to wage war on earth against the Brush Gods.

But now, they were a house divided.

And their division blighted them. Once they had ruled the land south of the city checkpoint, they had birthed great demons and swallowed maiden upon maiden.

Then Amaterasu had come.

They believed she would not challenge them, that they would ascend to Godhood unrivalled. Instead, she and Nagi had slaughtered them. They had been forced to crawl to Yami on their bellies and beg for survival.

A snarl rose on Kasai's lips.

Twice he had been crushed by Amaterasu, twice he had been forced to rely on the malevolence of Yami to survive until the next Day of Darkness.

And now, he could smell it on the winds, feel its imprint on the girl. The soft spring winds and the faint smell of cherry blossom that lingered on her skin, the warmth that slowly seeped south from the village of Kamiki, they only heralded one thing.

Amaterasu's revival.

They had a few months, perhaps less, until the sun returned and destroyed them once again. Only this time, they would be prepared.

Kasai felt a small warmth settle in him, and a smug satisfaction at being proven right.

His mind reached out, and felt the soft muttering where her own resided. There was a low, derogatory bark of laughter from the corner of their thoughts.

'_You still believe that she is the answer?' _He knew without question which head it was. Doku. Each thought as poisonous as the element it represented. '_She is, without a question, powerful. But do you honestly think that she is capable of surpassing what Yami provides? Do you think that she can protect us when the sun shines again? She herself sides with the sun! Can you not feel her warmth, the way the Brush Gods smile at her?'_

'_Everyone can change Doku. In particular the ones whose destinies are already set out for them.' _It was Kaminari, his voice a roll of thunder across the split second of silence that preceded it.

'_Destinies can be changed.' _Chikyu muttered.

'_Who are you, a prophet?' _Mizu's thought was a drop of water in the flood of voices that answered Chikyu, scarcely audible above Hikari's growls.

Kasai smothered a roar of irritation, and retreated back into his own thoughts. At least he still held sway with some of the other heads. Mizu, Hikari, Kyofu and Kaminari still sided with him. It was Doku, Kurayami and Chikyu who were proving problematic.

He needed them all on his side. He needed them to stand together, as they had thousands of years ago when they made that fateful decision.

Together, if they made use of the girl's powers, they stood a chance against the fire of Amaterasu. A chance, however slim. He listened half-heartedly to their arguing, to Kyofu's babble and Kurayami's muttering, to Hikari's snarling and Doku's occasional quips. And he made his decision.

'_Silence!' _He growled. They continued.

"SILENCE!" He roared. A quick quiet descended amongst the argument. The other seven heads turned to face him, startled by his outburst.

'_The sun will rise, regardless of what we do. But we must fight it, with every soul in our body we will fight against it.' _He was answered by swift murmurs of agreement. '_First, we shall do as we have always done. We shall honour our ways, our subjects. Let there be a curse to lay waste to the east of Nippon. Let the earth still from Kamiki to Ryoshima. Alert Ninetails, awaken the Crimson Helm and the Spider Queen from their slumber. Let Nippon know that Orochi has returned.'_

There was no disagreement this time.

Each head turned to face the Heavens, where thirteen constellations rose into the inky blue-black and dominated the skyline in a mass of glimmering light. They would rise no longer.

He roared, and Nippon was plunged into darkness.


	13. Days Passed

_Days Passed_

Lika had passed out when the imp had led her back to her chambers.

The next morning had been almost painful, a ringing in her head had tolled louder than the bell in the central cavern. The imp had still been there, perched precariously on the top of a chest of drawers.

He had announced himself as Chishun, that the Master had ordered him to protect her. She had wondered at that point what she had been drinking, or whether the afterlife had a cruel sense of humour.

It had transpired, after much pinching and poking, that she hadn't been dreaming, and that she hadn't been eaten.

The imp Chishun was even shorter than Baikokudo, clothed in muted purples and with a demon slip bearing the kana 'ri'. As he had explained as he had handed her new clothes, it was what marked them out amongst imps as the servants of Orochi, as residents of the Moon Cave, or as its residents called it, Izayoi.

His voice was nervous, his posture slumped, but he had been quick to show her the ways of the cavern, to explain its nuances and customs, impish greetings and how not to aggravate a demon wheel. His voice had turned hushed, reverent when she had mentioned Orochi, and he refused to comment on why he had spared her life.

Her imp robes were a dull olive green, tattered and smelling of old food. She hadn't dared complain, not when she had survived what many others hadn't.

Chishun had lead her out into the cave after covering her face with a demon slip, had explained her duty was to be an attendant in the kitchen. He had assured her that it was more entertaining than being on the gate, which was his position, and had offered her a few words of advice.

"Don't lift your slip, don't let yourself be found out, and most important of all, don't annoy Ajimi!"

She had laughed then, but she had soon found out that he had not been joking.

Most days passed with simple tasks, fetching ingredients for the Master's food, stoking the fire beneath the pot, manning the kilns when Fakku was ill, or serving the rest of the imps. As she had soon found out, kitchen imps always ate last.

She rose at dusk, slept starting at dawn. Chishun, apart from during the day, rarely left her side, and offered the occasional witticism or quip from beneath his nervous exterior.

Some days, however, weren't usual in the slightest.

She had risen at midday, her covers soaked with sweat. Panic gripped her. Her breathing came in short, sharp gasps that punctuated the silence.

She rushed to the door and flung it aside without thinking. Her heart hammered painfully in her chest. She couldn't put her finger on it, or place it, but something was wrong, something was very, very wrong.

Chishun woke up with a start from where he sat outside her door. He blinked and stretched upwards, his voice heavy with lethargy.

"W...What's going on?" His question was punctuated with a deep yawn.

"Something's wrong."

He seemed to be coming to his senses. "What? But you can't go out – the other imps might see you!" With a shove, he hauled himself to his feet.

But she was gone, off down the corridor. He hurried after her, his nails skittering as he shot across the floorboards towards her. The sense of panic intensified, burning its way through her mind as she hurtled towards the central cavern.

'_What is wrong?' _Orochi's mind reached towards hers. She tried to shake it off, to ignore its sudden appearance. He refused to be dismissed so easily. '_What is the cause for worry? There is nothing that can harm you.'_

Then the realisation hit her.

Her panic didn't stem from something hurting her, it stemmed from something hurting Orochi. Shock crackled through her.

Why was she so worried? If he died, she would be free, able to return to Kamui and live out the rest of her life as the Shaman of the Oina tribe at the foot of Ezofuji. She would also be at the mercy of a thousand demons who called Izayoi their home.

She sped up, feeling her muscles start to burn with the effort, her breathing change from quick, sharp pants to long, laboured draws.

Her powers flared beneath her skin, crackling and sparking with the intensity of her flight. They began to burn, burn like they had never done before, setting fire to her soul as they fought their way out of her fingertips in a mad crackle of energy.

For the first time since Ezofuji, her inner wolf returned with an impatient snap. It resented being neglected, demanded that it be free from its bindings.

She directed her newfound energy at it, and it gave a startled yelp.

But it did not subside. The wolf snarled as it tore its way forward through her mind, the energy simply raged and spat, scattering sparks of light off of her. Then she felt herself beginning to change.

Her legs trembled, her whole body shook. Any forward momentum she had was lost as she collapsed to the floor.

Terror washed over her.

Her body was rocked by spasms, jerks, twitches and tremors. She couldn't control it, for the first time since she had started the transformations, she couldn't control what was happening to her body.

And it horrified her.

She tried to find release from the floor, she twisted and writhed, her body contorting against the hard wood as she desperately searched for some position to alleviate the pain.

Through the haze of her vision, she watched the imp catch up with her.

He reached her side, his words a blur in her thoughts, and tried to lift her up. She grabbed his hand, desperate, panicky, forcing herself not to change. But she was slipping, she was losing the battle. With each second, more of her senses warped and changed, more of her body screamed with pain from her transformation.

It was never like this, not even when she broke her arm had it been like this, not even when she first started to transform had it ever been as agonising as this.

The Oina started to transform at the age of five, and underwent the ritual at eighteen to fuse with their wolf spirit. Up until that point, it was considered an entirely separate entity. The thought struck.

What if she was fusing with her mask?

Her terror intensified. She wouldn't be able to stop it, she couldn't physically or mentally stop it. She didn't have the power. That rested solely on the shoulders of the tribe leader – Samickle.

She watched her hand gnarl and curl inwards, her nails grow and sharpen, fur sprout and her mask slide up onto her forehead as her snout protruded forward.

The imp watched in shock.

But still the worry wouldn't leave her, it seemed, if anything, to grow in importance, to drive into her head. The final decision lay with her wolf form, who promptly decided that it couldn't possibly be ignored any longer.

With a whimper of apology to the petrified Chishun, she darted off, forward into the main cavern, to where the danger lay.

A demon hunter.

He stood on the lift mechanism, probing it angrily with his bow. She quickly gathered that he must have fallen down from the main staircase into the calcified cavern, and been forced to enter from there. Which also meant that he had murdered the imps on the gate.

However, it didn't answer the main question; what he was doing there in the first place.

The archer noticed her entrance, and raised his bow. A familiar shape was nocked in the cherry wood. An Exorcism arrow. This assault had been planned.

"Back, demon!" His voice didn't tremble, or so much as waver. She gave an irate snarl and began to circle him. He glared back, his bow following her every move. His eyes dared her to react to his challenge.

He lay a hand on the lift mechanism, and slowly began to wind it, beginning the slow ascent to Orochi's throne room.

Orochi. He had come here with the sole intent of killing Orochi.

With a snarl, she sprang upwards. Recognition formed in her mind. She knew this man, he lived in Kamui!

He hadn't lived there long, he had arrived there one day with no fanfare, no fuss, and set up a tent just off of the main road. He had once been a guard at the city checkpoint, and then on North Ryoshima coast, and like the boy and his dog, never told anyone about why he had taken the long journey north.

But she knew a few things about him.

One, that his name was Yoichi.

Two, that he owned more apples than humanely possible.

Three, that he never missed a shot.

She felt the arrow lodge itself in her shoulder a split second before her teeth tore into his throat. He crumpled like a rag doll beneath her.

Dull surprise was all that registered in her mind. She killed a man. She intended to kill him, and she had. This was no accident, nor anything that she could blame on the wild instincts of her wolf form.

She had been the first to act. It was next to entirely unprovoked. He had threatened the demons, and she had killed him.

Pain sprung to life in her shoulder, and she watched numbly as blood began to seep out of the wound on her left shoulder. She glanced back up, and realised that the imps were watching her. They were lining the walls, standing in the alcoves and entranceways, their heads bowed in respect.

It was Chishun that rushed forward to help her.

Easing the rest of her body to the floor, he summoned over a second imp, then a third, with a sharp whistle. One to man the lift mechanism, the other to remove the body of the dead man while he tended to the arrow wound.

He couldn't touch it though, none of them could. It was an exorcising arrow, designed to kill and mark demons of every kind, the very touch tore at their spirit.

'_I will not let you die.' _Orochi's voice resounded in her mind, authoritative. It staved off, if only for a moment, the slow, languid warmth that crept from the wound through the rest of her body, slowly numbing her.

As they reached the top, the two imps, with the merchant's assistance, manoeuvred her up the stairway and out into the throne room.

He was waiting, each head turned attentively, as she was rushed out into the fiery heat of midday.


	14. Broken Arrow

**_A/N: Thanks to Saya Moonshadow for the favourite and, though it's slightly late, Tempest Bound for the review :-)_**

_Broken Arrow_

Rage boiled in Kasai's mind; rage, indignation and fury, along with a profound irritation that he hadn't foreseen the demon hunter's attack.

He had felt his arrival, his appearance, the way he had shot the two guards with a single arrow to the head. He knew his intention the moment the man had returned to Nippon from Kamui, his mind dark with the thought.

He sent a single commanding thought out. They would not dispose of the body, Orochi wanted to see those the God's had picked to kill him.

And then there was the matter of the girl.

Guilt welled in some part of his mind, quickly suppressed. He supposed that when he had sent out the thought to kill the intruder, it had been the girl who had been made to answer. Her powers conducted his thoughts like a lightning rod, leaving her vulnerable to his whims.

He turned his full attentions to her.

"You will be rewarded for your loyalty, Chishun." Kyofu's voice was low, scarcely more than a babble, but the imp knew full well his Master's intentions, and with a small bow, left with the second imp in tow.

She had changed.

'_The intent.' _Kaminari muttered. The others turned inwards to listen. '_When it reached her, it turned her. It must have caused her powers to flare, and in doing so caused her to undergo the transformation.'_

There was a weight to what he said, and the other heads nodded in agreement, all except for Doku, whose thoughts turned into a sly snarl.

'_Why save her?' _All turned to listen but Kasai, who bent down to inspect the damage done by the exorcism arrow. '_She has little use to us, and Kasai is fooling himself if he thinks otherwise. Or rather, we are all fools for following Kasai...'_

'_Quiet Doku!' _Hikari snapped. '_Kasai, the girl, she is not irretrievable?'_

'_We will most likely have to repay her in kind, but no, she is not beyond our help.' _Kasai kept his voice low but assertive.

'_That settles it then.' _The other head's turned to stare at Mizu, who quailed under their scrutiny. '_What I meant was that even if she does turn out to be a fish, we can still repay her for healing us.'_

'_You mean healing Kasai? And if she turns out to be a 'fish' as you so eloquently put it Mizu, then we'll be eating her, as we should've done a hundred years ago!' _Doku growled.

'_If one more word comes out of your head Doku, I swear by my name I'll rip it off!' _Hikari's fury boiled over as he rounded on the head next to him. '_I've had enough of your words! Now, Kasai, before I rip the bastard's face off.'_

Kasai merely nodded, and began to hum softly, a low, repetitive chant that rose and fell in cadence. It was an ancient chant, older than the words used first to speak his name, perhaps as old as his fall from the heavens itself.

He breathed upon the form, let the energy ebb and flow from his body. He drew from the curse of Nippon, from the darkness that enslaved his kingdom, and felt it flow forth.

The energy itself was blighted.

It was drawn from Yami's soul, from the darkest of thoughts, the most horrendous of fears of eastern Nippon. It was more powerful than the girl's, by tenfold. But it was cursed, it waxed and waned with its Master, rose and fell in startling crescendos and empty decrescendos until it was as hollow and as powerless as a corpse.

He felt it flow into her, watched as she began to regain consciousness and her body began to draw back into human form.

The arrow was unmoveable.

He had seen countless of the damned things, and knew enough about them to say that much. An exorcism arrow was either fatal, or marked the demon as wanted by someone, a target for anyone out for glory, or money.

The arrow could only be removed by the person who had set it there in the first place, and he knew the man was long past being able to remove the arrow lodged in the girl's collarbone.

She slowly awoke, reaching out to push herself upwards. Her other hand went to the  
exorcism arrow. She touched it, and gave a sudden startled yelp at the burning sensation that shot through her hand.

"I wouldn't do that." It was Chikyu who spoke, his voice firm and stern. "Not with our power flowing through you."

She rubbed her face, her mouth slightly open with shock. "You can all talk?"

Kaminari answered her with his standard booming tone. "All of us are capable, just as all of us are individual entities sharing a single form."

"But, folklore states..."

"Folklore?" It was Hikari who answered with a snort of distaste. "Folklore is what's dictated to fools by the so-called heroes who attempt to slay us."

"Then, if you're not Orochi, who are you?" Her confusion was naive, benign. But even so, the heads murmured into their cavernous thoughts over telling her. Eventually, it was Mizu who broke the questioning silence with a customary brightness.

"Oh, we are Orochi. We are just eight parts of an Orochi. I am Mizu and I am capable of controlling water." They scowled between each other, but they were left with little other choice – Mizu had exposed them regardless.

"This is Hikari, capable of manipulating light rays. Kyofu is able to manipulate wind. Doku can breathe poison. Kurayami's specialities are cursed zones. And Chikyu is able to control the shifting of the earth. My opposite is Kaminari, the lightning rod. And, of course, you already know me. Kasai, possessor of fiery breath and fiery spirit."

Fiery spirit. It rang a bell in Lika's mind. Didn't the prophecy speak of a fiery spirit that would end their return? She had always assumed the spirit to be Amaterasu, but what if it was Orochi himself? She quickly dismissed the thought.

It would be Amaterasu who ended Orochi once again, no one else, and he certainly wouldn't be undone by himself.

Kasai bent down and held himself close to her ear. "Perhaps, it would be best if you let us be for a while, and prevented yourself from getting into any near-death situations. It would be presumptuous to say that I am capable of aiding you without their help, and I am not so sure if they will always be persuaded."

She nodded quickly. "I had no intention of being there, I just, was."

It was Kaminari who replied to her, with a low sigh. "The intent, it appears that you were more vulnerable to our thoughts than we first suspected. I would suggest that you don't transform, not for the considerable future."

"Or the considerable future might end up your last." Doku gave a growl of threat. "Now leave."

She scurried backwards, ignoring, or rather more attempting to ignore the pain that resurfaced in her shoulders where the arrow was lodged.

Chishun appeared from the recesses of the cave, and with a quick nod of the head, reappeared in the entranceway and lead her off back into the Moon Cave of the imps, into the warmth and camaraderie the imps knew, and away from the cold, glacial stare of the eight heads of Orochi.


	15. Weeks Passed

_Weeks Passed_

Lika's incident with Yoichi did not go unnoticed by the imps, and nor did it go unacknowledged.

After some consideration, Chishun had decided that there was no longer any need for her to wear her demon slip, and allowed her to wander freely throughout the cavern without having to worry about being noticed.

Most imps had started to bow their heads as she passed, a cursory dip of respect, while others thanked her, both privately, and publically. Chishun earned respect also, for his role in the fiasco, and his fingers flushed pink with pleasure whenever anyone spoke of her exploits. Other than their newfound fame, however, their schedules scarcely changed.

Ajimi, despite expressing his surprise at her revelation and sharing a number of jokes with Fakku about the skinny girl who he had lead from the shrine of Moegami, didn't cease her workload. If anything, he intensified it.

She had soon found herself scurrying the length and breadth of Izayoi in search of ingredients, even to places formally sealed to her.

The cavern was a warren; sands shifted and fell away to reveal cavernous holes that swallowed the unwary imp; sentry eyes glared at her balefully as she hurried her way past, and the odd imp would challenge her with a snarl and a bare of its fangs.

She would answer with a customary growl, showing the exorcism arrow like a badge of honour. Most soon turned back to their business.

Then there was the matter of the arrow, lodged above her breastbone.

It hurt less, and occasionally, albeit very rarely, she forgot of its existence. However, every so often, she would do something to aggravate it, to cause the pain to flare and linger. She would turn over in her sleep, and be faced with a fiery resistance, or she would run, and the muscles around it would burn as they touched it.

Orochi would be there.

He seemed a constant presence in the back of her mind, a slight flutter of thoughts that would reassure her that all was normal. Sometimes, his thoughts were inky, murky, dark with anger and clouded with violence, and she would try and ignore his brooding conscience.

Then there were times when he seemed happier, and he would summon her to bring his food to the throne room, only to dismiss her with a casual flick of his tail.

It confused her, the way he acted, the way his thoughts changed as quickly as the winds.

More recently, however, she had been thinking about Kai. The weeks were drawing fast to the head of a month, inexorably closer to the moment she would be drawn through the Spirit Gate. Some days, she would try and guess what she would be doing in Kamui, but the moments were fleeting, few and far between as Ajimi sent her to every corner of Izayoi to fetch food.

She drew closer to Chishun, who in turn defended her from the overly avid interests of some of the imps, and began to trust her.

He had once lived in Hana Valley, he had told her, known by the imps as Hanasaki, where the demon community thrived out of human reach. Few humans ever visited Hana Valley, he had explained, and they avoided those who did.

Then there had been an opportunity, one he had seized with both hands. A few years ago, as Orochi had begun to rise, as they had felt Izayoi again lift from the bed of Lake Harami, and the imps of eastern Nippon began to feel the powers of darkness grow and swell in the land, there came an intent.

The intent had been simple.

It had asked for imps to return to Izayoi to perform jobs. Whenever Izayoi sinks, he had informed her, the imps drown. He had admitted that his profession was dangerous, but stood firm to his belief.

It was an honour to serve the Lord Orochi, and it was something he would do to his dying breath.

She had asked about Ajimi, and his face had darkened slightly. As it turned out, Ajimi was one of the few demons who had survived the last sinking of Izayoi, for reasons still unknown to the rest of the imps.

She had tried to question Ajimi himself, but he had simply brushed her off and continued throwing ingredients in the pot. Even Fakku had shook his head and turned back to his kilns.

In spite of the air growing warmer, the days had grown darker, bleaker, and seemed permanently blighted with a low, ominous fog. Some days, it made the arrow burn in the bleakness, and she would be forced to brace herself against the pain. Most days, it simply hung like the smell from one of Ajimi's ice lip surprises.

Ajimi and Fakku had simply dismissed her concerns, so she confronted Chishun.

"What is this fog?" She approached him as he was returning to his quarters for the night, his body and soul weary with the day's work.

"Why? Is it irritating your wound?" He knew exactly what she was talking about.

"Show me Chishun, please." She had tried this line with Kai, and Oki, and even Tuskle countless times. Oki always gave in after the first few seconds of pleading, Kai, on the other hand, took a lot more forceful approach.

"I'm afraid the Lord Orochi wouldn't like that." He seemed nervous at her request, his hands flitting to his thin reed sword strapped to his waist.

"Chishun... It's not like he will even know."

The imp gave a harsh bark of laughter at her reply. "Not know? The Master lingers in your mind; even talking about this with you could get me turned into chimera feed!"

"Then he already knows that I want to see it."

"And has already planned how to feed me to the chimera."

"Please." Chishun's arms remained stubbornly, and purposefully, crossed. "I'll find a way to see it, regardless if you show me or not." She continued to plead with him.

He cocked his head to one side, as if considering it. And then slowly but surely, he nodded, three short, succinct nods. His hand drew back from his sword, and he moved closer to her, laying a hand on her shoulder.

"We'll have to go out through the calcified cavern, I'll show you the view from the front entrance. It probably best explains the situation."

With a slight tap, he lead her off from the milling crowd of imps, and out through the two imposing stone gates.

It had not been so long since she had entered through its calcite archway, yet already it seemed alien, a lifetime away. The calcified cavern had changed little since her grand entrance, the floor still milky whites and blues, slick with dripping water, and stalagmites and stalactites still conspired to reach each other, spindly fingers reaching from ceiling to floor.

They reached the far end, where the fog poured in through the gap in the staircase, acquiring an almost purple sheen in the weak dawning light.

He threw a rope up, snagging it and securing it on a step that projected forwards into the gaping mouth. He flourished his hands, and gave a jokey bow.

She raised her eyebrows at him, but seized the rope and hauled herself upwards, inch by inch, through the hole in the ceiling. He soon followed her, with a last glance around to see if anyone had noticed their actions.

No one. Or so they thought.

By the time Chishun reached her, Lika was in a state of shock.

Outside, the area around Lake Harami, Shinshu field... The world, both within the blue torii gate and beyond, was cursed.


	16. Cursed Trust

_**A/N: Thanks again to Daemonesca for the fav & follow, and to Saya Moonshadow for the fav, as well as to everyone with the patience to read this! Hope you continue to enjoy :)**_

_Cursed Trust_

She should have known.

Lika knew she should have at least guessed.

So why did it come as a surprise to her? Why did the image of Shinshu barren, lifeless, void, smothered under the demon's curse make her blood boil and her temper flare out of control?

He was a demon, after all. A vessel of Yami, nothing more. Disgust welled in her, and anger, turning her vision red.

Shinshu was a far cry from how she had seen it, from how she knew it from the scrolls of old east Nippon. Where once was a lush field, rich, vibrant, speckled with trees, dotted with animals and bright with life, there was only a cold, empty land.

The cursed zone spread across it with ease, shimmering with a faint grey aura. The only creatures visible were demons, and even they appeared scarce, the odd imp making its way on a rickety trading caravan through to Agata Forest, little more. Even the air seemed dull and stagnant, the slight breeze that drifted off of Lake Harami scarcely stirring the land.

Beside her, Chishun emerged, and gazed at the field with silent admiration. Of course. He was one of them too.

Memories pinched at her mind, of Kamui smothered under ice, Wep'Keer entombed in the cold and dark, the Oina slowly dying as the cursed zone closed in on them day by day, sealing them in their graves.

A tremor ran through her.

She felt her powers awaken, vicious and raw, scalding the tips of her fingers as they reached outwards, towards the cursed plain of Shinshu.

She strode forward, ignore Chishun's awestruck silence. There was nothing majestic about it, nothing of it that was beautiful to anyone. The entrance to the cave stood a little way ahead, exactly how she remembered it.

Except this time, a curse poured outwards, staining the arch with a foul purple air.

Determination settled in her. Her powers began to blaze with the challenge, crackling, illuminating the low fog with pale green sparks of light.

She would do something about it, or so the Gods help her...

"Wait! Lika," Chishun shouted as he ran up alongside her, his face stricken with worry. "You can't go out, remember? The gate won't allow you to."

She remembered now, now that he had mentioned it. She was still considered a creature of light, still considered affiliated with the Brush Gods. And for that the gate would never be persuaded to let her pass.

Then an idea flickered to life in her mind.

She lay a hand on the wall of the tunnel, and focused on a lone image in her thoughts. She saw Shinshu, as it had been, vibrant and wild, lake Harami awash with light and the fragrant scent of cherry blossoms.

There was a slow flicker, then a surge. The wall beneath began to tremble, turn green with moss and bloom with small flowers. It spread slowly, but surely, along the wall, out towards where the curse had lain waste to everything else.

Chishun put a hand on her shoulder to pull her away. She shrugged him off. "Lika! If the Master catches you, he'll eat you alive!"

"You mean like he's been planning to do all along?" Her sarcasm was acidic.

"No? No. But, stop..."

Her powers began to weaken and falter, each flower that bloomed stuck her muscles like a firebrand, burned in her heart like an inferno. But she refused to stop, she refused to let Shinshu die completely.

She closed her eyes and willed herself onwards, forcing each iota of energy into the blossoming grasses and moss that coated the stone wall, dispelling the curse that surrounded it.

She felt a sharp, sudden slap around her face.

She recoiled, shocked. And turned to face an unrepentant Chishun glaring at her pointedly, one hand on his reed sword. He was tense, prepared for anything she might throw at him, his stance wary and on edge.

"Just try and tell me you didn't deserve that."

"What?" She snarled. "For trying to cure the plains?"

"Who do you even think you are?" His voice was incredulous, his eastern accent and abject horror making his words sound even more highly pitched than normal. "Whose malevolence do you think you live under? Orochi is the Lord of eastern Nippon, he will not stand for resistance. Not even from his latest pet." He spat the words out as if they were foul.

She gave a whimper of affront, and rounded on him. "You are a, a..." She searched for the words. He answered her with a questioning growl.

"Say it."

"A demon! The foulest of demons!" She hissed.

"Then you're a fool." His tone was short, clipped, brusque, and caught her completely off guard. He was never like this; not when she stole his food, not when she annoyed him on guard duty, not even when she had brought up his embarrassing slip up in front of the crowd of imps. He was well and truly angry.

Their silence was short-lived, soon interrupted by a small figure in tattered red clothes that emerged from the mouth of the hole in the staircase. A figure who looked awfully familiar.

The figure clambered out of the hole with ease, and moved towards them, gaining definition as he moved through the iridescent fog in long, self-assured strides. Both of them turned to glare at their intruder.

She knew the figure. It was Baikokudo.

Her heart sunk as he emerged from the gloom with a smug stare, running his hands along the razor-sharp edge of his samisen.

"Well, what have we here then? A lover's quarrel?" Neither answered him. "If you're not going to play, then I'll tell you what we have here. Here, right beside me, we have a dead girl, and a gate."

Chishun trembled, his whole body shook by tiny spasms. "Please, please don't tell Orochi. I stopped her, I didn't intend for her to..."

"Ah, ah, ah." Baikokudo silenced him. "The Master must be the one to decide upon the severity of this, digression." He seemed to savour the last word, rolling it in his mouth as though it were a particularly delicious dish.

On the other hand, Chishun looked more terrified than she had thought him capable, stammering and missing out words as he pleaded with the self-righteous stare of the taller imp.

He quickly cut him off.

"I'm afraid the Master will have to decide."


	17. Blighted Faith

_Blighted Faith_

Orochi was more than angry, he was furious.

And for once, all of the heads coalesced in agreement. They had felt the girl's intentions, had heard the imp's conflicting thoughts, had seen the pair as they had ascended into the entranceway and made their way out towards the world beyond.

He had expected the girl to find out eventually, he had known that she would find her way out and see the waste he had lain to Nippon. But the imp's betrayal, he had not foreseen.

He supposed that he was having imp for dinner.

The trio emerged from the staircase, the imp Baikokudo in the centre, his movements jaunty and self-confident.

When Yami had begun to swell in power, enough for Orochi to be reborn in the land of Nippon, it had been Baikokudo who had emerged from the shadows of Shinshu as the Moon Cave rose from the depths of Lake Harami to pledge his loyalty to Orochi. The imp may have been considered cunning and self-absorbed by the others, but he was strong, and above all, indulged in servile flattery.

When Orochi had sent the intent, he had chosen Baikokudo specifically.

The other imp, Chishun, was practically on his knees as he shuffled towards his Master, head bowed in defeat.

The girl was unrepentant, and it annoyed him.

"Leave Baikokudo, I shall see to it that you receive your reward." Kasai could scarcely keep his words from morphing into a snarl. The imp gave a stiff, formal bow, but quickly retreated to the relative safety of the Moon Cave as he watched his Master's temper begin to flare.

He turned to the duo.

He could see only red. Kasai growled, and a plume of flame was jettisoned out of his nostrils, missing the pair by scarcely a hair's breadth. Both flinched, but refused to move. They were awaiting their punishment.

He rounded on the imp first, all eight of his heads toward the figure, almost encircling him. It trembled, but again refused to flee.

To flee would break this one's honour, and that was against his very nature. Instead, his breathing turned ragged, his heartbeat became uneven and his skin acquired a grey pallor beneath his tufts of fur. He gave a slow, jerky nod of acceptance.

"So, you would defy me for this one?"

He did not deny it, and simply bowed his head. "I will take your punishment, Master."

Irritation boiled in him. Normally, they did not take it so easily; they pleaded with him, begged him on their knees, or tried to run. This one did neither. Under normal circumstances, he would be more forgiving on the silent ones, just. But today, it annoyed him, it drove him wild with a fury he couldn't place.

"You would tell me that you would die for this one's mistakes?" It was a provocation, one ignored by the imp.

"I would die if the Master saw it fit."

That was it!

Flame raged to his head, and Kasai was forced to turn heavenwards as an angry spout of fire surged out into the darkness. Beneath Chikyu, the ground began to tremble. Sparks scattered off of Kaminari's neck. Even Mizu began to writhe, water forming around him.

Then he realised what the emotion was, and felt a strange sensation lodge itself in his chest. He had never felt it before, not once, not even when he had been crushed by Amaterasu and left to watch his peers flourish.

He was jealous.

The Lord of the Demons of eastern Nippon was jealous of a small, inconsequential imp. And for what reason? Each head already knew the answer before they uttered it, with slight astonishment, into the abyss of their thoughts.

The imp was close to the girl, he had access to her whenever he wanted, she smiled at him freely, her laughs were not pried from her lips. Not one part of her actions or emotions were forced as they were with him. He had watched them for some time now, lingering in the shadows of their thoughts. And what he saw burned him with envy.

He turned back on the imp. And came face to face with the girl.

She was standing between them, her eyes blazing with a fury to rival his. Her hands were held up out towards him, sparks of uncontrolled power bursting off of them in showers.

He snarled. She still refused to move. He could hear her heartbeat, rapid and uneven, he could see the deep heaves of her chest as she tried to smother her panic. Her body told him that she was little more than a girl, a mortal, fragile and delicate. Yet her eyes told a very different story, as did the energy that scattered from her fingertips.

He nudged forwards slightly, and her hands began to glow with the ferocity of her powers.

"You will not eat him. I will not let you eat him."

Hikari answered before Kasai could restrain him, his voice distorted into a ferocious roar. "And who are you to stop us?"

He gave a lunge outwards, and she raised a single hand.

Pain, pain ignited on Hikari's muzzle and he shot backwards in anger and surprise. She had not touched him. She had not lain a single finger on him.

He had got too close, and the power had jumped, arcing through the space between them like a burning rainbow and scalding his mouth. The pain still resonated with a loud, wild cry. She was more powerful than he had expected.

He was nearing his peak, with each day he felt Yami grew in numbers and strength, and yet her she was, scarcely more than a girl, and yet able to burn him so easily.

He recoiled, both out of wariness, and respect.

"I will not let you eat him." She repeated firmly. "I'm responsible, not him. Now leave him be." Emphasis lay on each word, as if it were a chant.

Doku snarled, but it was he who agreed to her request.

_'Let her save him, let her think she has saved him. Let her bear the full burden of responsibility for the act she has committed against us.'_


	18. Tainted Love

**_A/N: Hmmm. I'm never sure about this one, anyway, read and see what you think :S_**

**_Might get revised at a later date_**

**_ SouthKentishTown_**

_Tainted Love_

With little more than a curt nod and a growl of acknowledgement, Orochi dismissed the imp. He seemed relieved, but still panicked. Lika reassured him with a brief bow, before turning back to the monster at hand.

Her own panic returned.

The monster was staring at her, his eyes transfixed, blazing with a strange mixture of emotions. What she saw in them both confused and horrified her.

"I swear, if you touch me, I will kill you." It was an exaggeration, but more than simply and idle threat. In her palms, she felt her powers simmer as they began to boil back up to the surface, ready for another confrontation.

In truth, they terrified her as much as the emotions behind them.

When Hikari had lunged, she had panicked, but she'd also been angry, furious, enraged at his thoughts of killing Chishun. She had heard them, not through her own will, but through a small, seemingly unnoticeable part of her mind that was connected to him that had whispered of his intent. And she had lost it.

Standing there, the girl and the monster, she knew who any spectator would put money on. Before, she would've agreed with them, but now, now she wasn't sure.

It wasn't just her powers that had evened out the balance, it was the demon himself. That small part of him remained, and through it, she could hear him, the bicker of his thoughts, and the myriad of his emotions. And she could feel it, clouding his thoughts, irrespective of head or element.

Her mind told her that it was unnatural, the most horrendous thing. But her heart was telling her something almost entirely different.

For one, it almost seemed to agree with him.

She tried to push it out of her thoughts, to ignore it, to focus on the task at hand rather than the knot of emotions that flowed between her and a Demon Lord.

It was Doku who broke the potent silence, leaning into the divide between them. "So, you would commit an act against us, you would defy us in spite of what we have done for you, what we have offered you?"

He gave a mock lunge forwards, and the glow of her hands intensified. He retreated back to beside Chikyu.

"I would defy you, monster." She could have imagined that she saw him flinch, almost as if in shock? No. Surprise? Definitely not. She told herself that he had never flinched at all, that she had imagined the slight movement of hurt.

At the back of her mind, she felt Doku's rage, Kaminari's resentment, Kyofu's rush of thoughts, and above all, Kasai's division.

Of all the heads, he seemed the most conflicted, his blood red eyes blinking at her, as though confused. It was Doku who opposed her, and he opposed her virulently, each thought dark, heavy and poisonous, laced with sarcasm and barbed with threat.

_'I will always defy you.'_

Her presence in their mind startled them, causing each head to scatter and retreat back into the privacy of their individual thoughts.

His mind, collectively, was an abyss. It was empty, void of any life, any thought other than her own, echoing across it. Then slowly, warily, one by one they returned, their thoughts a murmuring of start and indignation.

_'How did you even get in here?' _Kaminari's mental voice was even louder than his real voice, a rolling boom that crackled through the empty space.

_'There are some gaps in your reasoning.' _Her reply was answered by a swift rush of thoughts.

_'You would violate us!' _Doku gave a snarl of ire.

_'Only as you would seek to violate me.' _She was met with a stark, awkward silence.

She was unsure how long they stood like that, stuck at an awkward impasse. Their minds engaged in a fierce but silent war with each other as their emotions slipped outwards in a turgid torrent. It was unnatural, inhuman, she told herself. It was unnatural, a violation, he told himself. But against their mental sparring, they could do nothing but watch helplessly, and withdraw.

There was a hard flutter of wings.

They both refused to disengage, desperate to gain the upper hand, locked in a battle where neither wanted to be the first to surrender.

A soft cough, an urgent hoot, and Orochi was forced to disengage.

The two turned to face their visitor.

It was a Great Tengu. The beast sat perched on the rim of the torii that marked the external entrance to Orochi's throne room, watching them with a bemused stare.

The sight of it turned Lika's blood cold.

She had seen many of them before, far more than she had ever wanted. Great Tengu's were just some of the monsters who had overrun Wawku Shrine, and they were also the worst of the monsters. They were cunning, conspiring with imps and namahages to activate tricks and traps, to hide keys and collapse floors, and to destroy the central lift mechanism.

The presence of one in the Moon Cave meant one of a few things, but one of them lingered heavily on her mind.

The Great Tengu had been sent by Lechku and Nechku.

It seemed natural, obvious when she thought of it, that the demons of Kamui and Nippon would communicate, that they would send lesser demons to cross the wastelands and stormy seas to bring messages to one another. They were, after all, all controlled by the hand of Yami.

The Great Tengu shook itself, and a cloud of murky blue and green feathers descended to the floor below with a storm of water. It shifted slightly before it spoke, revealing its knobbly legs and sharp, cruelly curved talons beneath its decaying plumage.

"My Lords send their greetings to you, Lord Orochi." Its voice was the familiar low drawl of the north, but its mouth moved oddly, disjointed, its lips flapping as they opened and closed like loose flaps of skin beneath its long, protruding nose. "They request to speak to you about a matter most urgent, it concerns Master Yami."

Kasai's lips curled into a scarcely concealed snarl.

The Tengu's eyes drifted over towards her. "My Lords request that you are the only one that hears of this. I am afraid your pet will have to be dismissed"

Lika covered up a sharp noise of annoyance that escaped her mouth. Pet! She wasn't anyone's pet, least of all Orochi's. She turned back to Orochi, and sent him a last biting, but fleeting thought.

_'Your pet will dismiss herself.'_

And gathering herself back together, she left, leaving both the Tengu's and Orochi's eyes following her as she strode back into the depths of the Moon Cave.


	19. Months Passed

_Months Passed_

She had spent at least a month resolutely ignoring Orochi.

Upon her return to her chambers, she had checked to see if Chishun had recovered from his shock. If he had, it was soon replaced by the shock of seeing her. He had embraced her, and had joked conspiratorially about the Master's whims.

Instead of cheering her up, it had had the opposite effect.

She had quickly and quietly dismissed herself, much to Chishun's chagrin. He had soon learnt to no longer mention the Master, to leave him out from conversations, to ignore his entire existence as far as Lika was concerned.

Throwing herself back into her work, Lika had found out, was the only way to remove the demon's presence from the back of her mind, the shadows of her thoughts. And even then it wasn't completely foolproof. An imp's quip, a sentry eye's doleful glare, even the earth trembling slightly as the sands subsided, and he would dominate her thoughts again.

He had started to approach her, trying to persuade her to answer a single question. One that he repeated endlessly, until it ricocheted through her mind constantly, an ever present reminder.

_'Did you mean it?'_

She was scarcely sure herself, confused and terrified by the magnitude of her emotions, desperate to keep away from having to answer them.

But Orochi wanted answers, and she knew that he was beginning to grow impatient with her silence. She sorely suspected that it was only Kasai's and perhaps Mizu's benevolence that kept him from summoning her up to his throne room to answer for her emotions.

She needed to get out, to get away before she let them get the better of her.

Recently, she had spent hour after hour of her free time praying at the shrine to Moegami in the bowels of the Cave, pleading with the Gods into the late hours of the morning to rescue her. It seemed that her prayers were never answered, no matter how sincere. Now, even the constellation to Moegami had vanished from the night sky, replaced by the low fog of the cursed zone.

The other imps started to grow testy with her, they began to heckle her and belittle her for her sudden religious zeal. She suspected that Fakku had told them when he caught her sneaking off work to pray to the Brush Gods.

Ajimi's patience with her grew thinner and thinner, while his jobs for her grew increasingly important in responsibility. He still sent her to gather ingredients, but began to focus her on cooking meals, for the imps, for the chimera, even once for Orochi himself. She had been tempted to add extra fire eye to it, but refrained.

However, whenever she had confronted the head chef, he remained evasive, dismissing her with a casual wave of his wooden spoon. Fakku also refused to tell her.

Eventually, she had wrangled the answer from Chishun, after several barrels of Fakku's speciality, Sake of Valour.

He had explained that the reason Ajimi had survived the previous sinking of Izayoi, was because he had not been in the Moon Cave at all. Instead, he had ran away when he heard Orochi's dying cries, determined not to drown.

He had been left homeless, wandering the plains of eastern Nippon. He had started to serve his food again to survive, but kept his identity hidden from people, and the majority of others.

What did he mean by 'others'? She had asked. He had laughed raucously, and tapped his head. There lived off of Taka Pass, or Takamiyadaira, a clan of sparrows. Not any old sparrows, but ones as big as imps, gifted with the powers of speech.

Ajimi had helped the daughter of their chief, but had become besotted with her. While Orochi remained entombed, he had been free to visit her as he pleased. It had been when Izayoi rose from Lake Harami that he had been forced to leave. Marked out as a servant of Orochi, Ajimi had been obliged to return.

"Tell me this," Chishun had asked her. "Have you ever seen an imp die?"

"I have seen an imp cleaved from head to toe by a sacred sword." She had answered.

He had laughed at her. "Besides from that, I mean." When she had failed to provide a satisfactory answer, he had cheered. "You haven't, have you? That's because imps, demons, we don't die, not until we are physically killed or Yami's powers can no longer sustain us. We are simply spirits of darkness in corporeal form. Our armies are undefeatable."

"What has this got to do with Ajimi?" She had asked.

"He has finished his time serving Orochi, and he is not dead. Each imp who answers the intent spends ten years in the service of the Master, and then they are free. If they are still alive. It allows fresh blood to enter Izayoi."

"So he's leaving?" She had been shocked. She had never realised the imps had any choice about leaving.

"Exactly. And he's training you and Fakku to succeed him."

She had thanked Chishun, and then been forced to haul him back to his chambers after he had passed out under the table.

When she had told Ajimi, he had simply sighed. "You managed to wrangle that off Chishun? How much of Fakku's sake did you need to do that? Of course it's true. Don't look so startled sweetheart, we all get there eventually. Most of us, anyway."

It gave her fresh hope though, a vain, fleeting hope that in ten years time that she would be allowed to leave. And then she remembered. She was no imp, she had not answered an intent, willingly or not. Which left her trapped in the Moon Cave as long as Orochi wished it so.

It was a particularly cold day when he had snapped and summoned her to his throne room, the cursed fog hung low in the air.

She no longer needed an escort, she guided herself up from the elevator and onto the platform that overlooked the vista of the throne room.

Orochi had been waiting for her, all heads were turned attentively in her direction. She gave a stiff bow, and descended into the room, stopping a few feet opposite Kasai.

_'I am beginning to lose my patience. Now tell me, did you mean it?'_

"So this is it." She didn't bother thinking it. The words simply flowed like water, uncontrolled and uncontained. "You will not leave me be for want of a single answer?"

"It is a single question that you refuse to answer." It was Doku who spoke, his normally acerbic jibes replaced with a smooth coax.

"Have you considered leaving me alone? Have you considered contenting yourself with not knowing the answer? Have you considered giving me some privacy?!" Her voice rose to almost a scream, frustration pouring out of her.

Since their last meeting, she had not had a moment's peace, a moment's silence, a single moment entirely to herself. And his intrigue was wearing thin.

"Yet you still won't tell us." Kaminari's voice was unusually soft, despite its reverb across the cavern.

"Fine, I meant it. Now will you please leave me alone!" And with a shout, she left, fleeing back into the cave's recesses, leaving a stunned silence behind her.


End file.
